A major blow to ‘core’ al-Qaeda
U.S. strike said to target al-Qaeda’s No. 2
By Joby Warrick and Haq Nawaz Khan, , WashPost, Tuesday, June 5, 7:39 AM
U.S. missiles killed more than a dozen people in northwestern Pakistan early Monday in a strike that apparently was aimed at al-Qaeda’s No. 2 leader, the charismatic and influential jihadist known as Abu Yahya al-Libi, U.S. and Pakistani officials said.
The terrorist commander’s fate remained unclear Tuesday, amid a swirl of rumors inside Pakistan that the longtime deputy to Osama bin Laden had been badly wounded or perhaps killed in the strike on a house used by Arab fighters. Libi’s death, if confirmed, would represent one of the biggest successes against al-Qaeda since bin Laden was killed by Navy SEALs 13 months ago.
“We have some indications that [Libi] was in the house or in the neighborhood, but whether he was killed or not is still unclear,” a Pakistani intelligence official in the region said Tuesday in a telephone interview.
Libi’s death “would be a major blow to ‘core’ al-Qaeda, removing the No. 2 leader twice in less than a year,” said a senior U.S. official with access to classified reports from Pakistan, where officials from both countries were working to ascertain Libi’s fate.
(More here.)
U.S. missiles killed more than a dozen people in northwestern Pakistan early Monday in a strike that apparently was aimed at al-Qaeda’s No. 2 leader, the charismatic and influential jihadist known as Abu Yahya al-Libi, U.S. and Pakistani officials said.
The terrorist commander’s fate remained unclear Tuesday, amid a swirl of rumors inside Pakistan that the longtime deputy to Osama bin Laden had been badly wounded or perhaps killed in the strike on a house used by Arab fighters. Libi’s death, if confirmed, would represent one of the biggest successes against al-Qaeda since bin Laden was killed by Navy SEALs 13 months ago.
“We have some indications that [Libi] was in the house or in the neighborhood, but whether he was killed or not is still unclear,” a Pakistani intelligence official in the region said Tuesday in a telephone interview.
Libi’s death “would be a major blow to ‘core’ al-Qaeda, removing the No. 2 leader twice in less than a year,” said a senior U.S. official with access to classified reports from Pakistan, where officials from both countries were working to ascertain Libi’s fate.
(More here.)
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1 Comments:
I am delighted that President Obama is keeping up the pressure on al-Qaeda. My question - where are the protestors? Isn’t Obama following the evil George Bush ‘cowboy’ doctrine of, “You’re either with us or against us.”? To refresh your memory, go to Bing images, turn safe search off and search for bush drone protests. Yes, there are a few protestors pictured if you do a similar search for Obama but the difference is quite telling.
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