The United States said Tuesday that al Qaeda number two Abu
Yahya al-Libi was dead, after a drone strike dealt the weightiest blow
to the terror group since the killing of Osama bin Laden.
The demise of Libi, a charismatic figure beloved by rank-and-file
radicals with a flair for media and managerial authority over terror
affiliates, meant another victory in President Barack Obama’s ruthless
bid to crush al Qaeda.
“Our government has been able to confirm Al-Libi’s death,” said White
House spokesman Jay Carney, ending a prolonged US tussle with a man who
once escaped from a US jail in Afghanistan, and had defied previous
attempts to kill him.
Officials refused to confirm the circumstances of Libi’s death, but
Pakistani authorities previously spoke of a pre-dawn CIA drone strike on
Monday on a compound in North Waziristan, near the Afghan border.
“It is significant,” another US official said, saying Libi headed al
Qaeda operations in Pakistan and outreach to affiliates such as
Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which has attacked
US targets.
Officials were unable to say whether there were any other casualties
in the attack on Libi, after earlier reports that 15 people had died in
the drone strike.
News of the killing of Libi followed reports detailing the scope of
the US campaign against global terrorism, including revelations that
President Barack Obama personally presides over a “kill list” of top
suspects.
Libi’s death will also bolster Obama’s national security credentials
as he seeks to repel claims of weakness abroad leveled by his Republican
opponent in November’s election, Mitt Romney.
Republicans have complained that the White House is selectively
leaking intelligence data to bolster Obama’s reputation as a steely
commander in chief.
The Libi killing may again worsen tenuous US ties with nominal
anti-terror ally Pakistan, severely harmed by drone strikes, a US raid
that killed bin Laden last year and Islamabad’s refusal to reopen Nato
supply lines into Afghanistan.
A trusted lieutenant of bin Laden, Libi appeared in countless al
Qaeda videos and was considered the chief architect of its global
propaganda machine.
The US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Monday that
Libi had served as the group’s “general manager” and had overseen
day-to-day operations in Pakistani tribal areas.
The official described the killing of Libi as a “major blow” to al
Qaeda’s core that would put further pressure on the group’s leader Ayman
al-Zawahiri.
Analysts said that Libi had played a talismanic role in al Qaeda, and
his loss could be a blow from which the movement may not recover.
“If Zawahiri is put down soon, al Qaeda’s senior leadership will be
broken and the torch will have to pass to AQAP,” said terrorism expert
Jarret Brachman, of North Dakota State University.
Libi’s death followed the US claim that Atiyah abd al-Rahman, then
described in Washington as al Qaeda’s number two, was killed in a US
missile strike in North Waziristan on August 22 last year.
“It is a job that is hard to fill and there may not be, given the
duration of late that people have held that job … a lot of candidates
hoping to fill it,” Carney said.
Pakistani officials had originally said it was unclear whether Libi
had been present at a compound in the village of Hesokhel, east of
Miranshah, the capital of North Waziristan, that was targeted in the
drone strike.
Libi had evaded US clutches before: he escaped from a high security US prison at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan in 2005.
There had been unconfirmed reports that Libi was wounded in a US
drone strike that killed nine militants on May 28. A report that he was
killed in a December 2009 drone strike in South Waziristan also proved
false.
read more at this source: http://dawn.com/2012/06/06/us-kills-qaeda-number-two-in-drone-strike/
