Senior al-Qaida commander killed in Pakistan

CAIRO, Egypt – Abu Laith al-Libi, a top al-Qaida commander in Afghanistan who was blamed for bombing a base while Vice President Cheney was visiting last year, has been killed, according to a militant Web site.\nAl-Libi was a key link between the Taliban and al-Qaida and was listed among the U.S.’s 12 most-wanted men with a bounty of $200,000 on his head.\nThe Web site Al-Ekhlaas, which frequently carries announcements from militant groups, said that al-Libi had been “martyred” but did not say where he was killed.\nEarlier, there had been reports of an attack on militants in a Pakistani village. Pakistani intelligence officials and local residents said a missile hit a compound about 2.5 miles outside Mir Ali in North Waziristan late Monday or early Tuesday, destroying the facility.\nResidents said they were not allowed to approach the site of the blast and the Pakistan government and military said they did not know who fired the missile. Local officials said foreigners were targeted in the attack.\nOne intelligence official in the area, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the bodies of those killed were badly mangled by the force of the explosion and it was difficult to identify them. The official estimated 12 people were killed, including Arabs, Turkemen from central Asia and local Taliban members.\nTwo top officials of Pakistan’s Interior Ministry said they could not confirm al-Libi’s death and were still trying to gather details on the missile strike. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the attack.\nA knowledgeable Western official said that “it appears at this point that Al-Libi has met his demise,” but declined to talk about the circumstances. “It was a major success in taking one of the top terrorists in the world off the street,” the official said. He added that the death occurred “within the last few days.”\nThe U.S.-led coalition and NATO-led force in Afghanistan could not confirm al-Libi’s death. An official with the NATO-led force said they were picking up some signals from the Web, but could not confirm whether Abu Laith al-Libi was dead.\n“There is no confirmation from our side,” said a NATO official in Kabul on condition of anonymity, since he was not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.\nThe announcement of al-Libi’s death appeared as a banner in a section of a Web site reserved for affiliated militant organizations, according to the Washington-based SITE Institute, which monitors such sites.\n“As the banner was posted ... by a webmaster of the forum, it seems as if the announcement of his death has been confirmed to the forum administrators,” SITE said in an e-mail to news organizations.\nMaj. Chris Belcher, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan, said last year that al-Libi was a guerrilla fighter “knowledgeable about how to conduct suicide bombing missions and how to inflict the most civilian casualties.” He had probably directed “one or more terror training camps,” Belcher said.\nBelcher said al-Libi – whose name means “the Libyan” in Arabic – had been the subject of “especially close focus” by U.S. intelligence since 2005, when U.S. forces destroyed a militant training camp believed set up by al-Libi in the eastern Afghan province of Khost. That was an admission that terror camps continued to operate on Afghan soil since the Taliban regime’s ouster more than five years ago.\nBelcher described al-Libi as “transient,” moving where he thought he could count on support.\n“Terrorists like al-Libi use the rugged terrain of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to conceal themselves while they plan violent insurgent activities. Our sources indicate that Abu Laith al-Libi favors tribal regions, including North Waziristan,” Belcher said.