Two Al Qaeda suspects believed killed in Pakistan
Two men wanted in the deadly attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998 were killed in a U.S. strike in the tribal region, an official says. One of the men was a suspect in the Islamabad hotel blast.
Reporting from Washington — Two senior Al Qaeda operatives were killed in a CIA missile strike on New Year's Day in Pakistan, including a suspect in the bombing of Islamabad's Marriott Hotel in September, a senior U.S. counter-terrorism official said Thursday.
The two operatives were also suspects in the deadly 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa for which they had been indicted in the United States, the official said.
The missile strike, in South Waziristan, was carried out by a Predator drone aircraft armed with Hellfire missiles and operated by the CIA. It was among dozens of such attacks carried out along Pakistan's tribal belt in the last year as part of an escalated campaign against Al Qaeda hide-outs.
The official said that CIA analysts had concluded that "these two guys met violent deaths on Jan. 1," and that "they were believed to be planning additional attacks."
One of those said to be killed was a Kenyan known by the name Usama al-Kini, who was believed to be Al Qaeda's chief of operations in Pakistan. The other, also a Kenyan native, was identified as Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan.
Both men were on the FBI’s list of most-wanted terrorists and had been indicted in the Southern District of New York. Rewards of $5 million were offered for information leading to the capture of either man.
Their deaths would place them among eight senior Al Qaeda figures reported killed in Predator strikes over the last six months. Others included Rashid Rauf, the suspected mastermind of an alleged plot to blow up several airliners over the Atlantic Ocean in 2006, and Abu Khabab Masri, who was described as an explosives expert in charge of Al Qaeda's chemical and biological weapons efforts.
Scores of Pakistani civilians, including women and children, have also died in the U.S. strikes.
The stepped-up missile campaign has been part of a broader U.S. effort launched after a series of high-level intelligence assessments concluded that Al Qaeda was growing stronger in Pakistan's rugged border region, with fresh inflows of money and militants from Europe and elsewhere.
CIA officials declined to comment on the strike, saying it is policy not to discuss operations. But Director Michael V. Hayden has alluded to the campaign in recent speeches, saying in November that "America and its friends have taken the fight to the enemy."
