Posted on 01/22/2006 10:18:37 PM PST by mastercylinder
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — An al-Qaida explosives and chemical weapons expert and a relative of the terror network’s No. 2 leader were among four top operatives believed killed in a U.S. missile strike in Pakistan last week, Pakistani security officials said Thursday.
The three security officials, all speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media, said the al-Qaida figures were believed to have been in Damadola village near the Afghan border at the time of Friday’s attack but their bodies have not been recovered. The attack also killed 18 civilians.
The officials said the operatives included Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar, 52, who the U.S. Justice Department calls an explosives and poisons expert. The Egyptian also has distributed training manuals with recipes for chemical and biological weapons and trained hundreds of fighters at a terrorist camp near the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad before the ouster of the hardline Taliban regime in late 2001.
Umar is suspected of training the suicide bombers who killed 17 U.S. sailors in the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, according to Mohamed Salah, a Cairo expert on Islamic extremists.
The Justice Department’s web site says the exact whereabouts of Umar, also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri, are unknown but that he may be living in Pakistan. It offers $5 million for information leading to his arrest.
According to the Pakistani officials, the other militants possibly killed included Abu Obaidah al-Masri, the al-Qaida chief responsible for attacks on U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan, across the border from the strike site; and Abdul Rehman al-Maghribi, a Moroccan and relative of al-Zawahri, possibly son-in-law to Osama bin Laden’s top aide.
One of the officials said al-Maghribi was involved in public relations for al-Qaida and helped distribute statements, CDs and videos publicizing the group. In particular, al-Maghribi had contacts with Arab journalists and kept them abreast of al-Qaida news, he said.
Some of the officials also said a fourth man, Khalid Habib, the al-Qaida operations chief along the Afghan-Pakistan border, was believed to be dead. The officials said Habib had planned assassination attacks on Pakistan’s President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and is associated with Abu Farraj al-Libbi, a top al-Qaida figure arrested in northwestern Pakistan in May.
Pentagon officials said they had no information on the reported identities of the dead, and CIA spokesman Tom Crispell said the agency could not comment.
Pakistani authorities previously said four or five foreign militants were killed in the airstrike, which officials say targeted — but missed — al-Zawahri. The strike has angered many in the Islamic country, prompting street protests over the weekend.
About 1,000 protesters also marched through the northwestern city of Peshawar on Thursday, chanting “Death to America” and “Jihad, Jihad.”
Pakistan maintains it was not given advance word of the airstrike, which was reportedly carried out by unmanned Predator drones flying from Afghanistan, and has condemned the killing of innocent civilians.
Provincial authorities said al-Qaida sympathizers took the bodies of the foreign militants believed to have been killed to bury them in the mountains near the Afghan border, thereby preventing their identification.
Pakistani Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the bodies may have been taken by a local pro-Taliban cleric, Maulana Faqir Mohammed, who also is being hunted by authorities. Authorities believe he and another prominent pro-Taliban cleric survived the attack last Friday.
Title is wrong. No. 2 is Zawahiri, and there's no claim in the article that he's dead.
Bad title by the times, should say "relative" of #2
No one but women and children here, folks. Move along.
Apparently there are more Al Qaeda number twos than there are bottles of Chanel No. 5.
How did you get my picture?
"...Apparently there are more Al-Qaeda number twos than there are bottles of Chanel No. 5..."
That is my exact sentiment as well. It seems that no matter whom we blast to smithereens over there...they're always a "Number Two Leader to Osama bin Laden" when the story is written by the mainstream media.
~ Blue Jays ~
there are no innocent civilians in the border region
LOL!
But All them Al-Queda fools are FULL of #2
I wonder if the recording of that stupid poem they proclaim whaz-his-name read was actually an old recording and the guy is dead. Either that, or another conspiracy theory could be that the poem is a coded message to his followers.
Number 6: Who are you?
Number 2: The new Number 2.
Number 6: Who is Number 1?
Number 2: You are Number 6.
Number 6: I am not a number, I am a free man.
http://tv.cream.org/specialassignments/themes/prisoner.mp3
"The Altair is designed to carry an 700-lb. payload of scientific instruments and imaging equipment for as long as 32 hours at up to 52,000 feet altitude.
Eleven-foot extensions on each wing give the Altair an overall wingspan of 86 feet with an aspect ratio of 23. It is powered by a 700-hp. rear-mounted TPE-331-10 turboprop engine, driving a three-blade propeller.
Following successful completion of basic airworthiness flight tests in 2003, Altair is scheduled to be acquired by NASA for evaluation of over-the-horizon control, collision-avoidance and other technologies required to enable UAVs to operate safely and routinely with other aircraft in the national airspace."
There. That's more accurate.
I think it's Number Three's that breed like VP's in a Fortune 100 corporation. Even The Daily Show did a bit on it.
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