The terror network Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has reportedly offered 3 kilos of gold worth more than US$ 150,000 to anyone who will kill the US ambassador to Yemen, Gerald M. Feierstein - who is Jewish -, as well as more than US$ 20,000 for anyone who kills a US serviceman in Arab country. According to a report by the 'Associated Press', the Yemen-based AQAP's media arm, the al-Malahem Foundation, made the offers in an audiotape posted on several websites last weekend. The offer is open for six months. The bounties were set to "inspire and encourage our Muslim nation for jihad," the statement said.
Feierstein was sworn in as the US Ambassador to Yemen in September 2010. Prior to his posting in Sana’a, he served as US deputy chief of mission in Islamabad, Pakistan. Feierstein has spent all of his foreign service abroad in the Middle East or Southeast Asia. Between 2006 and 2008, Feierstein served in various positions in Washington, DC in the Bureau of Counterterrorism. Since joining the diplomatic service in 1975, Feierstein has served in Pakistan, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Lebanon and Oman.
AQAP is regarded as the most dangerous branch of al-Qaeda, founded by Osama bin-Laden. In September, it called for increased violence and protests directed at US diplomats worldwide. The attack on the US diplomatic outpost in Benghazi Libya, which led to the death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, is believed to have been carried out by AQAP.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia reportedly provided fighter jets to assist the United States with its drone strikes against Al-Qaeda targets in Yemen. A new US drone attack on Thursday killed three suspected terrorists in the town of Rada, in Yemen's central Al-Bayda province, the site of similar recent attacks. Among the victims was a senior AQAP figure, Moqbel Ebad Al Zawbah, according to the 'Reuters' news agency.
