W00t!!
4 Al Queda killedISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Jan. 19, 2006
This image provided by the FBI shows Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar. The U.S. Justice Department names Umar as an explosives expert and poisons trainer who operated a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/FBI)
“It's a very significant blow to al Qaeda,” said Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert at the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies in Singapore. “These are very experienced leaders and to replace them in the short term will be very difficult.”
(CBS/AP) An al Qaeda 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.
Pakistani agents continued their hunt for two pro-Taliban clerics who dined with the operatives the night of the airstrike, hoping to glean new details about the attack and who was killed.
The authorities have said four or five foreign militants died in last Friday's attack in Damadola, a village near the Afghan border. Officials say the airstrike targeted, but missed, al Qaeda No. 2 leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. It also killed 18 local people, outraging many in this Islamic country.
The security officials, all speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media, named four al Qaeda figures thought to have been in the village at the time of the attack, saying that their bodies were believed to have been taken away by sympathizers.
They included Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar 52, an Egyptian, cited by the U.S. Justice Department as an explosives expert and poisons instructor who trained hundreds of mujahedeen at a terrorist camp in Afghanistan near the eastern city of Jalalabad before the ouster of hard-line Taliban regime in late 2001.
The officials say Faqir Mohammed and Liaqat Ali were likely responsible for burying, and concealing, the bodies.
Mohammed reportedly returned near the scene of the attack in Pakistan's tribal region two days later to lead an anti-U.S. protest.
“The government is actively hunting for them,” said a senior government official with high-level access to information on the Damadola attack.
“Once we have them in custody, more will definitely be revealed” about that night, said the official, who declined to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the investigation.