ISLAMABAD, Pakistan Dec 3, 2005 — One of al-Qaida's top five leaders, a key associate of Ayman al-Zawahri, was tracked down with U.S. help and killed by Pakistani security forces in a rocket attack near the Afghan border, officials said Saturday.
Hamza Rabia, believed to have become al-Qaida's operational commander after the arrest of Abu Farraj al-Libbi in northwestern Pakistan in May, ranks somewhere between third and fifth in the terror network's hierarchy, officials said.
He was among five people who died in an explosion Thursday in the North Waziristan tribal area. Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said Rabia's remains were identified via a DNA test.
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Ahmed backed the official line that the blast was set off as the victims were making explosives inside a suspected al-Qaida hideout.
However, a senior intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media, said a missile attack triggered a huge explosion in a stockpile of bomb-making materials, grenades and other munitions.
Another intelligence official said U.S. help was involved in tracking Rabia down and "eliminating the threat" that he embodied. That official also spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.
On Saturday, Pakistan's Dawn newspaper, citing sources it did not identify, reported that the attack on a mud-walled home near Miran Shah may have been launched from two pilotless planes.
Miran Shah is a strategic tribal region where remnants of al-Qaida are believed to have been hiding and where Pakistani forces have launched several operations against them.
Intelligence officials said Rabia who is Syrian was the target of the attack because of his alleged involvement in dozens of terror attacks and killings of government officials in Pakistan's lawless tribal regions. He was brought to the area by al-Zawahri, who is believed to have been on the run along the Pakistan-Afghan border.
Hamza Rabia, believed to have become al-Qaida's operational commander after the arrest of Abu Farraj al-Libbi in northwestern Pakistan in May, ranks somewhere between third and fifth in the terror network's hierarchy, officials said.
He was among five people who died in an explosion Thursday in the North Waziristan tribal area. Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said Rabia's remains were identified via a DNA test.
[...]
Ahmed backed the official line that the blast was set off as the victims were making explosives inside a suspected al-Qaida hideout.
However, a senior intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media, said a missile attack triggered a huge explosion in a stockpile of bomb-making materials, grenades and other munitions.
Another intelligence official said U.S. help was involved in tracking Rabia down and "eliminating the threat" that he embodied. That official also spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.
On Saturday, Pakistan's Dawn newspaper, citing sources it did not identify, reported that the attack on a mud-walled home near Miran Shah may have been launched from two pilotless planes.
Miran Shah is a strategic tribal region where remnants of al-Qaida are believed to have been hiding and where Pakistani forces have launched several operations against them.
Intelligence officials said Rabia who is Syrian was the target of the attack because of his alleged involvement in dozens of terror attacks and killings of government officials in Pakistan's lawless tribal regions. He was brought to the area by al-Zawahri, who is believed to have been on the run along the Pakistan-Afghan border.
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