[2] In early 2000, Rabeiee along with two other individuals, including a former member of the Political Security Organization (PSO), travelled to Afghanistan in order to "die as a martyr", claiming that the money he earned from his job within the Yemen was haram.

Rabeiee spent the rest of the year and most of 2001 in Afghanistan, spending time with September 11 hijackers Muhammad Atta and Ziad Jarrah and allegedly training in an al-Qaeda camp with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

[8] Later in November, he and his brother Abu Bakr al-Rabeiee organized a cell for the attempted shootdown of a Hunt Oil helicopter, which injured two employees.

[10] The verdict for the trial was reached on 28 August, with Rabeiee along with his brother Abu Bakr being sentenced to 10 years in prison for their role in the Hunt Oil helicopter attack, and each being fined 18.3 million Yemeni riyals (US$99,457) for the Civil Aviation Authority bombing.

[14] On 5 February 2005, Rabeiee was sentenced to death after being found guilty in planning the MV Limburg bombing as well as the killing of a Yemeni security officer.

[15][16] Rabeiee was involved in planning AQY's first attacks since 2002, a pair of simultaneous suicide bombings in September 2006 targeting two oil facilities in Yemen.

[3][2] On 1 October 2006, Rabeiee was alongside fellow al-Qaeda member Muhammad al-Daylami during a pre-dawn raid by Yemeni security forces in Sanaa.

Based on a tip to Yemeni authorities, a house in a Sanaa suburb that Rabeiee was hiding in was raided, leading to a shootout which killed him and Daylami.