Profile: Silvan Becker

An al-Qaeda affiliate group, al-Muqatila, allegedly kills two German intelligence agents. The agents, Silvan Becker and his wife Vera, are in Libya when they are killed. In 1998, the Libyan government will issue an arrest warrant for Osama bin Laden and several others for their murders (see April 15, 1998). Counterterrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna will later write, “According to the German secret service, Becker was their Arabist and his untimely death gravely affected Germany’s ability to effectively the growing al-Qaeda infrastructure in Germany.” [Gunaratna, 2003, pp. 189-190]