If his death is confirmed it would be the biggest blow to al Qaeda since U.S. special forces killed Osama bin Laden in a secret raid in Pakistan in May 2011.
“This would be a major blow to ‘core’ al-Qaida, 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.
US officials confirmed to The New York Times that Al-Libi had been the target of the missile attack in North Waziristan, a Taliban and al-Qaeda stronghold along the Afghan border, but could not say whether he had survived.
“People are looking very closely to see whether he’s still alive,” a US official told the New York Times.
“It’ll take some time for people to gain a high level of confidence that he’s dead. But he’s number two in al-Qaeda, and this would be a major blow.”
Abu Yahya is a Libyan militant who has appeared in al Qaeda promotional video messages and once escaped from a U.S.-run prison in Afghanistan.
Reports from Pakistan said nearly 30 people were killed during the sequence of strikes, including four suspected militants on Saturday, ten suspected militants on Sunday, and 15 people in the strike in which Abu Yahya was targeted.
from KHAAMA
By Khushnood Nabizada - Tue Jun 05, 1:17 pm
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Kabul Time
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