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Dead al-Qaeda leader may have been successor to Abu Faraj al-Libbi
The operational commander of al-Qaida and a top-five official in the terrorist organization was killed early Thursday by a CIA missile attack on a safehouse in Pakistan, officials have told NBC News.Pakistani sources said that Hamza Rabia was one of five men killed at a safehouse located in the village of Asorai, in western Pakistan, near the town of Mirali. Among those killed in the attack were two Pakistanis and three Arabs, said the Pakistani sources, who asked to remain anonymous. The attacks were carried out between 1:45 a.m. and 2 a.m. local time on Thursday. Local residents said that the men were killed by an unknown number of missiles fired by an unmanned Predator aircraft. The witnesses said that missile remnants bearing U.S. markings remain in the area. They also said they had heard six explosions, but it is uncertain how many of these were the result of missile attacks and how many may have been the result of the missiles detonating explosives inside the safehouse. Officially, neither the U.S. government nor the Pakistani government would confirm a successful attack. U.S. officials confirm a missile attack took place, but would not confirm that Rabia was killed. A high-ranking Pakistani official confirmed that Hamza Rabia had been killed in a Predator attack. Rabia has been sought by both U.S. and Pakistani officials for more than two years. Pakistan has offered a $1 million reward for his capture. He is believed to have participated in the planning for two assassination attempts against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on Dec. 14 and Dec. 25, 2003. At that time, Rabia was believed to be the chief deputy to Abu Faraj al-Libbi, al-Qaida's operational chief and the No. 3 man in the organization. In May, Pakistani security forces captured Abu Faraj and turned him over to the U.S. U.S. officials have said that Rabia succeeded Abu Faraj as operations chief. Rabia was brought into al-Qaida by Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's No. 2. Like al-Zawahiri, Rabia is an Egyptian. U.S. officials have described him recently as "top-five al-Qaida" and, as one US official said on Friday, "killing him would be indeed a very big deal." Rabia was the target of another Predator attack on Nov. 5, according to local Pakistani officials. During that strike, in the village of Mosaki, eight people were killed in what is now described as an unsuccessful attempt to kill Rabia. Local officials have told NBC News that the dead included the wife and children of the al-Qaida leader. Both the village of Asorai, where Thursday's attack took place, and Mosaki, where the November attack took place, are within 45 minutes of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The area is a hiding place for top al-Qaida officials, according to U.S., Pakistani and Afghan officials. Posted by: Dan Darling 2005-12-03 |
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