Monday, January 3, 2011
Bin Laden Top Aid Killed In Predator Strike
Islamabad: Nasir al-Wahishi, a top al-Qaeda commander, who reportedly served as an aide of Osama bin Laden, was killed in a US drone attack in northwestern Pakistan on December 28.
Al-Wahishi, 32, a Yemeni national, who presided over the January 2009 merger of Saudi Arabian and Yemeni splinters of al-Qaeda, was killed in the year end.
Wahishi was killed when two missiles were fired on a militant camp at the Ghulam Khan sub-district of North Waziristan, Kyodo reported quoting Pakistani officials.
Al-Wahishi is among four top al-Qaeda commanders killed in American drone strikes which assumed unprecedented proportions in 2010.
Those killed by US missiles include al-Qaeda number 3 Abu Mustafa al-Yazid, Sheikh Fateh al-Misri, al-Qaeda's operations head for Afghanistan and Pakistan, who replaced Yazid.
The two other commanders killed were Abdallah Umar al-Qurayshi, who co-ordinated Osama bin Laden's Arabs in Afghanistan, and explosives expert Abu Atta al-Kuwaiti.
The drones have also felled top Taliban commanders including its chief Baitullah Mehsud and the trainer of suicide bombers Qari Hussain Mehsud.
The officials claimed Wahishi had served as secretary of bin Laden until 2003. He was arrested in Iran and extradited to Yemen in 2003. The al-Qaeda commander was among 23 Yemeni captives who made a dramatic escape from maximum security prison in Sana'a, in 2006 and was at large since then.
The Yemeni figures in the Interpol's Orange Notice as well as US State Departments and UN Sanctions List.
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