Pakistani Military Sources Say Zawahiri May Be Dead

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Pakistani Military Sources Say Zawahiri May Be Dead
Forensic Tests to Reveal Fate of al Qaeda Number Two

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=1504096

Jan. 13, 2006 — Today, according to Pakistani military sources, U.S. aircraft attacked a compound known to be frequented by high level al Qaeda operatives. Pakistani officials tell ABC News that al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant, may have been among them.

U.S. intelligence for the last few days indicated that Zawahiri might be in the location or about to arrive, although there is still no confirmation from U.S. officials that he was among the victims.

The attack took place early this morning Pakistan time in a small village a few miles from the border with Afghanistan.

Villagers described seeing an unmanned plane circling the area for the last few days and then bombs falling in the early morning darkness.

Eighteen people were killed, according to the villagers who said women and children were among the fatalities.

But Pakistani officials tell ABC News that five of those killed were high-level al Qaeda figures, and their bodies are now undergoing forensic tests for positive identification.

Officials say Zawahiri was known to have used safe houses in this area last winter and was believed to be in the area again this winter.

Zawahiri, who appeared just last week in a new videotaped message, had increasingly been taking the operational reins of al Qaeda, and is thought by U.S. officials to be the current true mastermind of the terrorist group.

Pakistani officials tell ABC News that the bodies of the five suspected al Qaeda figures will be recovered at first light in Pakistan, but it will still take a day or two for any kind of positive identification. U.S. officials in Washington did not comment.

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Pakistan Condemns Purported CIA Airstrike

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060114/ap_on_re_as/pakistan_al_qaida_attack

By RIAZ KHAN, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 45 minutes ago

DAMADOLA, Pakistan - Pakistan on Saturday condemned a purported CIA airstrike on a border village that officials said unsuccessfully targeted al-Qaida's second-in-command, and said it was protesting to the U.S. Embassy over the attack that killed at least 17 people.

Thousands of local tribesmen, chanting "God is Great," demonstrated against the attack, claiming the victims were local villagers without terrorist links and had never hosted Ayman al-Zawahri.

Two senior Pakistani officials told The Associated Press that the CIA acted on incorrect information in launching the attack early Friday in the northwestern village of Damadola, near the Afghan border.

Citing unidentified American intelligence officials, U.S. news networks reported that CIA-operated Predator drone aircraft carried out the missile strike because al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant, was thought to be at a compound in the village or about to arrive.

"Their information was wrong, and our investigations conclude that they acted on a false information," said a senior Pakistani intelligence official with direct knowledge of Pakistan's investigations into the attack.

His account was confirmed by a senior government official who said al-Zawahri "was not there." Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity.

Washington had no comment on the reports that the attack was aimed at al-Zawahri, who has a $25 million U.S. government bounty on his head. Like bin Laden, he is believed to have been hiding along the rugged Pakistan-Afghan frontier since the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Pakistan says it does not allow Afghan or the 20,000 U.S. forces in Afghanistan to cross the border in pursuit of Taliban and al-Qaida believed to be hiding there. The war on terror is opposed by many in this Islamic nation of 150 million people.

Pakistan's information minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, called the "incident" in Damadola "highly condemnable."

The Foreign Ministry later issued a statement saying a protest had been filed with the U.S. Embassy.

"According to preliminary investigations there was foreign presence in the area and that in all probability was targeted from across the border in Afghanistan," the Foreign Ministry said.

"The investigations are still continuing. Meanwhile the Foreign Office has lodged a protest with the U.S. ambassador in Islamabad."

U.S. Embassy spokesman Rakesh Surampudi said the protest had not been received by Saturday evening.

An AP reporter who visited Damadola about 12 hours after the attack saw three destroyed houses, hundreds of yards apart. Villagers had buried at least 15 people, including women and children, and were digging for more bodies in the rubble.

Villagers denied hosting al-Zawahri or any other member of al-Qaida or Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime, and said all the dead were local people.

More than 8,000 tribesmen staged a peaceful protest in a nearby town Saturday to condemn the airstrike, which one speaker described as "open terrorism." Police dispersed a smaller protest in another town using tear gas. A mob burned the office of a U.S.-backed aid agency near Damadola, but nobody was injured, residents said.

NBC News reported that U.S. and Pakistani officials said Predator drones had fired as many as 10 missiles at Damadola in the Bajur tribal region. ABC quoted anonymous Pakistani military sources as saying al-Zawahri could have been among five top al-Qaida officials believed killed.

A second Pakistani intelligence official told AP that the remains of some bodies had "quickly been removed" from Damadola after the strike and DNA tests were being conducted, but would not say by whom. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists.

The official said that hours before the strike some unidentified guests had arrived at the home of a tribesman named Shah Zaman.

Zaman, who said three of his children were killed when his home was destroyed, told AP he was a "law-abiding" laborer and had no ties to al-Zawahri or any other militants.

"I don't know him. He was not at my home. No foreigner was at my home when the planes came and dropped bombs," Zaman said.

Local lawmaker Sahibzada Haroon ur Rashid, who visited Damadola soon after the attack, said the dead had been buried and that no foreigners were among them. They came from a local family of jewelers, he said, adding that none of the bodies was burned so badly that identification was difficult.

In Washington, Pentagon, State Department, National Security Council and intelligence officials all said they had no information on the reports concerning al-Zawahri. A U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan, Lt. Mike Cody, referred questions on the matter to the Pentagon.

Doctors told AP that at least 17 people died in the attack, but residents of Damadola, a Pashtun tribal hamlet on a hillside about four miles from the Afghan border, said more than 30 died. They recounted hearing aircraft fly overhead before explosions in the village that were felt miles away.

Speaking as he dug through the rubble of his home, Zaman said he heard planes at around 2:40 a.m. and then eight huge explosions. He said planes had been flying over the village for three or four days.

At another destroyed house, Sami Ullah, a 17-year-old student, said 24 of his family members were killed and vowed he would "seek justice from God."

The attack was the latest in a series of strikes on the Pakistan side of the border with Afghanistan that have not been explained by authorities but are widely suspected to have targeted terror suspects or Islamic militants.

Pakistan lodged a protest Monday with the U.S. military in Afghanistan after a reported U.S. air strike killed eight people in the North Waziristan tribal region last Saturday. Pakistan says it does not allow U.S. forces to cross the border in pursuit of Taliban and al-Qaida fighters.

In Afghanistan, Mohammed Hasan, deputy police chief of Kunar province, which is opposite Bajur, said U.S. forces had for weeks been patrolling in airplanes along the rugged border, which he described as a hide-out for Arab terrorists.

Al-Zawahri, an Egyptian, has appeared regularly over the Internet and in Arab media to encourage Muslims to attack Americans and U.S. interests worldwide.

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Source: Al-Zawahiri Not Among 18 Killed in Airstrike

http://www.ksbitv.com/home/2201897.html

1/14/2006

(CNN) -- Ayman al-Zawahiri -- Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in the al Qaeda terrorist network -- was not killed in a CIA airstrike on a remote Pakistani village, according to a Pakistani intelligence official.

U.S. sources said al-Zawahiri was the target of Friday's strike and initially reported that he may have been among the 18 people killed.

The Pakistani intelligence official said it was not known whether al-Zawahiri was in the area.

Pakistan's Foreign Office said Saturday it had lodged a protest with the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan over the attack on the village of Damadola, near the Afghan border.

"Pakistan will also take up this matter in the next meeting of Tripartite Commission," a statement read. The group is made up of senior military and diplomatic representatives from coalition forces, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Associated Press quoted a senior Pakistani intelligence official as saying "our investigations conclude that they (the CIA) acted on a false information."

Reuters also quoted a senior Pakistani official as saying: "Al-Zawahri was not there at the time of the attack."

The Pentagon and the White House declined to comment on initial reports of the airstrike on Friday.

Friday morning's strike killed eight men, five women and five children, Pakistani intelligence sources told CNN. Three homes were targeted.

"We are conducting tests to identify the bodies," one intelligence official said.

The Foreign Office statement said a preliminary investigation shows "there was foreign presence in the area and that in all probability was targeted from across the border in Afghanistan.

"As a result of this act there has been loss of innocent civilian lives which we condemn. The investigations are still continuing."

Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, Pakistan's information minister, said that the U.S. ambassador, Ryan Crocker, is to be summoned and a strong protest will be made.

"While this act is highly condemnable, we have been for a long time been striving to rid all our tribal areas of foreign intruders who have been responsible for all the violence and misery in the region. This situation has to be brought to an end."

He added that it "is also the responsibility of the people in the areas to fully co-operate.'"

U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan have long been concerned about foreign fighters taking refuge in neighboring Pakistan.

The Foreign Office statement said Pakistan's armed forces "have undertaken a large-scale operation against the foreign militants and it remains our responsibility to protect our people and territory from outside intrusion."

Hundreds of residents took part Saturday in protesting the attack.

The strike came a week after the Arabic language news network Al-Jazeera aired a new videotape with a message from al-Zawahiri, in which he called on U.S. President George W. Bush to admit defeat in Iraq.

U.S. authorities believe al-Zawahiri, 54, a doctor from a prominent Egyptian family, helped mastermind the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He has also been indicted in the United States for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

The U.S. government has put up a $25 million reward for information leading to his capture.

While bin Laden himself hasn't been heard from since October 2004, last week's videotape was the fifth message from al-Zawahiri released over the past year, including several claiming responsibility for the July attacks on London's transit system.

Considered the intellectual and ideological driving force behind al Qaeda, al-Zawahiri has been associated with bin Laden since at least 1987, when they first met in Pakistan. He is also believed to act as bin Laden's personal physician.

In 1998, al-Zawahiri merged his own Islamic militant group, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, into bin Laden's organization.

Three months after the 9/11 attacks, U.S. forces attacked al-Zawahiri's residence in Afghanistan, killing his wife and children.

In March 2004, Pakistani troops launched an assault on an area in Waziristan province where intelligence indicated al-Zawahiri was hiding, but he was not captured.

Last month, Pakistani officials confirmed the death of a top al Qaeda official, Abu Hamza Rabia, who was killed in an explosion December 1 north of the border town of Miram Shah.

But witnesses gave conflicting accounts of how he died. Villagers said he was killed in a missile strike, while Pakistan officials said he died while working with explosives.

Egyptian-born Rabia was described as al Qaeda's operations chief and No. 3 man.

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Senators Defend Airstrike in Pakistan

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060115/ap_on_go_co/us_pakistan

By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 23 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Senators defended on Sunday a purported CIA airstrike that Pakistani officials said killed at least 17 people in a village near the border with Afghanistan but not the intended target, al-Qaida's No. 2 leader.

"We apologize, but I can't tell you that we wouldn't do the same thing again" in going after Ayman al-Zawahri, said Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz.

McCain said it is a "cautionary tale" about the fate of the terrorist network's leaders that the U.S. "didn't take them out year ago." He said the United States must hunt them down wherever they are hiding.

"We have to do what we think is necessary to take out al-Qaida, particularly the top operatives. This guy has been more visible than Osama bin Laden lately," McCain said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

A U.S. counterterrorism official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the information's sensitivity, said it's still unclear if al-Zawahri was killed in the attack.

Pakistani officials have strongly condemned the strike. The White House declined to comment on the attacks on Sunday, except to praise President Gen. Pervez Musharraf as well as Pakistan as "a valued ally on the war on terror." Officials at several U.S. agencies have not immediately provided details about the attack.

The FBI anticipates performing DNA tests on the victims, a law enforcement official said Saturday.

Islamic groups staged demonstrations across Pakistan on Sunday to denounce the attack. A protest in Karachi drew 10,000 people, and chants of "Death to America" were heard.

Sen. Evan Bayh (news, bio, voting record), D-Ind., said the real problem is that the U.S.-allied Pakistani government does not control the region along the mountainous border with Afghanistan, where the attack occurred. Many al-Qaida and Taliban combatants are believed to have taken refuge there.

"It's a regrettable situation, but what else are we supposed to do?" Bayh told CNN's "Late Edition." "It's like the wild, wild west out there. The Pakistani border is a real problem."

Pakistani intelligence officials have told The Associated Press that al-Zawahri was invited to a dinner marking an Islamic holiday in the border village of Damadola, but that he did not show up.

Sen. Trent Lott (news, bio, voting record), R-Miss., said strikes are necessary to get at al-Qaida leaders in Pakistan who are directing anti-American violence in Iraq. "My information is that this strike was clearly justified by the intelligence," Lott said.

Both Bayh and Lott serve on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Bayh said the CIA had been watching the area for several days and that the agency would not have conducted such an operation without extraordinarily high levels of intelligence. Bayh said he has "every reason to believe" that high-ranking officials in the Pakistani government were told in advance of the strike.