Abu Yahia al-Libi

Who was Abu Yahia al-Libi?

Abu Yahya al-Libi, born Mohamed Hassan Qaid, was an Islamist terrorist and leading high-ranking official within al-Qaeda, and an alleged member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.

He is believed to have been able to speak Urdu, Pashto and Arabic and to have used the aliases Hasan Qaiid, Yunis al-Sahrawi, and Hassan Qaed al-Far.

Al-Libi was a citizen of Libya, who was held in extrajudicial detention in the Bagram interim detention facility. At that time, American counter-terrorism analysts asserted that al-Libi was a member of al Qaeda. Al-Libi was one of several high-profile Bagram captives who escaped on the night of July 10, 2005.

Jarret Brachman, a former analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency, states of al-Libi:

He’s a warrior. He’s a poet. He’s a scholar. He’s a pundit. He’s a military commander. And he’s a very charismatic, young, brash rising star within Al-Qaeda, and I think he has become the heir apparent to Osama bin Laden in terms of taking over the entire global jihadist movement.

Scheuer states of him that he "in the last year or so emerged as al-Qaeda's theological hardliner" and an "insurgent-theologian" He was also an official on al-Qaeda's Shariah Committee.