Joesoef
14-01-06, 07:57
US targeted al Qaeda No. 2 in airstrike
Sat Jan 14, 2006 1:28 AM ET
ISLAMABAD/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. airstrike in Pakistan targeted al Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, but it was unclear if he had been killed, U.S. sources knowledgeable about the strike said.
CNN quoted sources saying the CIA ordered Friday's strike after receiving intelligence Zawahri was in a village near the border with Afghanistan.
ABC News quoted Pakistani military sources as saying five of those killed were "high-level" al Qaeda figures.
The attack killed at least 18 people, including women and children, locals say.
U.S. sources in Washington knowledgeable about the strike, believed to have been conducted by CIA-operated unmanned drones armed with missiles, told Reuters it would not be known whether Zawahri was killed until the remains of the dead were examined.
Pakistan was investigating the reports, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said. "Our investigation is still going on ... I cannot confirm anything," he told Reuters.
A Pakistani intelligence source said he had been told by U.S. officials the strike was ordered based on information Zawahri and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar had been invited to a dinner to celebrate this week's Muslim Eid al-Adha festival.
But they had no confirmation either had been there at the time of the attack about 3 a.m. on Friday (2200 GMT Thursday) and senior Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah told Reuters no Taliban commander had been there.
Another intelligence official said four U.S. aircraft had fired four missiles that destroyed three houses in the attack on the village of Damadola in the Bajaur tribal agency opposite Afghanistan's insurgent-troubled Kunar province.
While 18 villagers were killed -- eight women, five men and five children -- another five bodies were thought to have been removed after the attack and Pakistani agents were uncertain where they had been taken, said the first intelligence source, who declined to be identified.
Major Chris Karns, a spokesman at U.S. Central Command in Florida, the command responsible for the region, said there had been no official report of an attack in Pakistan.
Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Egyptian-born Zawahri and Mullah Omar have eluded capture ever since U.S.-led forces toppled Afghanistan's Taliban government in 2001 after the September 11 attacks on U.S. cities.
MISSING BODIES
One Damadola resident said three or four foreigners had come from Afghanistan for Eid.Another said he had seen bodies of at least two people who seemed to have been outsiders.
"Where these bodies have gone, I don't know," he said.
Pakistan's The News newspaper said the villagers had been buried after a mass funeral led by Maulana Faqir Muhammad, a cleric wanted for giving shelter to suspected al Qaeda members.
Pakistani intelligence officials said Damadola has been a stronghold of Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (Movement for the Implementation of Mohammad's Sharia Law), a pro-Taliban group banned by Pakistan in January 2002.
Intelligence sources also said fighters from Afghan guerrilla leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-i-Islami active in Kunar were known to take refuge among sympathetic tribesmen in Bajaur.
They said the area had been overflown by U.S. aircraft for several days and there had been speculation the strike had aimed at an important figure, but they were unsure who.
Pakistani forces thought they might have surrounded Zawahri on another stretch of the border in March, 2004, but the quarry turned out to be a lesser al Qaeda figure.
Pakistani forces have caught or killed several top al Qaeda figures since 2001, most notably September 11 mastermind and the network's then number three, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, in 2003.
Last month, authorities said al Qaeda member Abu Hamza Rabia was killed in a blast in the Waziristan region.
Residents said that blast came from a missile fired by an unidentified aircraft but Pakistani officials said explosives stored at a militant hideout detonated accidentally.
Rabia, in his 30s, took over al Qaeda's number three spot after the capture of another top militant, Abu Faraj Farj al Liby, in Pakistan in May, U.S. and Pakistani officials said.
Analysts say the arrests in Pakistan and elsewhere mean bin Laden's and Zawahri's network has lost much of its capability.
But while they have been partly overshadowed by al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, they are still regarded with awe among Islamist militants and their sympathisers.
In a video aired last Friday, Zawahri hailed "Islam's victory in Iraq" and said the United States was being defeated there.
(Additional reporting by Joanne Morrison in Washington and Simon Cameron-Moore in Islamabad)
© Reuters 2006
Sat Jan 14, 2006 1:28 AM ET
ISLAMABAD/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. airstrike in Pakistan targeted al Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, but it was unclear if he had been killed, U.S. sources knowledgeable about the strike said.
CNN quoted sources saying the CIA ordered Friday's strike after receiving intelligence Zawahri was in a village near the border with Afghanistan.
ABC News quoted Pakistani military sources as saying five of those killed were "high-level" al Qaeda figures.
The attack killed at least 18 people, including women and children, locals say.
U.S. sources in Washington knowledgeable about the strike, believed to have been conducted by CIA-operated unmanned drones armed with missiles, told Reuters it would not be known whether Zawahri was killed until the remains of the dead were examined.
Pakistan was investigating the reports, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said. "Our investigation is still going on ... I cannot confirm anything," he told Reuters.
A Pakistani intelligence source said he had been told by U.S. officials the strike was ordered based on information Zawahri and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar had been invited to a dinner to celebrate this week's Muslim Eid al-Adha festival.
But they had no confirmation either had been there at the time of the attack about 3 a.m. on Friday (2200 GMT Thursday) and senior Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah told Reuters no Taliban commander had been there.
Another intelligence official said four U.S. aircraft had fired four missiles that destroyed three houses in the attack on the village of Damadola in the Bajaur tribal agency opposite Afghanistan's insurgent-troubled Kunar province.
While 18 villagers were killed -- eight women, five men and five children -- another five bodies were thought to have been removed after the attack and Pakistani agents were uncertain where they had been taken, said the first intelligence source, who declined to be identified.
Major Chris Karns, a spokesman at U.S. Central Command in Florida, the command responsible for the region, said there had been no official report of an attack in Pakistan.
Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Egyptian-born Zawahri and Mullah Omar have eluded capture ever since U.S.-led forces toppled Afghanistan's Taliban government in 2001 after the September 11 attacks on U.S. cities.
MISSING BODIES
One Damadola resident said three or four foreigners had come from Afghanistan for Eid.Another said he had seen bodies of at least two people who seemed to have been outsiders.
"Where these bodies have gone, I don't know," he said.
Pakistan's The News newspaper said the villagers had been buried after a mass funeral led by Maulana Faqir Muhammad, a cleric wanted for giving shelter to suspected al Qaeda members.
Pakistani intelligence officials said Damadola has been a stronghold of Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (Movement for the Implementation of Mohammad's Sharia Law), a pro-Taliban group banned by Pakistan in January 2002.
Intelligence sources also said fighters from Afghan guerrilla leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-i-Islami active in Kunar were known to take refuge among sympathetic tribesmen in Bajaur.
They said the area had been overflown by U.S. aircraft for several days and there had been speculation the strike had aimed at an important figure, but they were unsure who.
Pakistani forces thought they might have surrounded Zawahri on another stretch of the border in March, 2004, but the quarry turned out to be a lesser al Qaeda figure.
Pakistani forces have caught or killed several top al Qaeda figures since 2001, most notably September 11 mastermind and the network's then number three, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, in 2003.
Last month, authorities said al Qaeda member Abu Hamza Rabia was killed in a blast in the Waziristan region.
Residents said that blast came from a missile fired by an unidentified aircraft but Pakistani officials said explosives stored at a militant hideout detonated accidentally.
Rabia, in his 30s, took over al Qaeda's number three spot after the capture of another top militant, Abu Faraj Farj al Liby, in Pakistan in May, U.S. and Pakistani officials said.
Analysts say the arrests in Pakistan and elsewhere mean bin Laden's and Zawahri's network has lost much of its capability.
But while they have been partly overshadowed by al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, they are still regarded with awe among Islamist militants and their sympathisers.
In a video aired last Friday, Zawahri hailed "Islam's victory in Iraq" and said the United States was being defeated there.
(Additional reporting by Joanne Morrison in Washington and Simon Cameron-Moore in Islamabad)
© Reuters 2006