US missiles on Thursday killed the most senior Pakistani in Al-Qaeda,
one of the Americans' main targets in the country and wanted for
attacks that killed scores of people, officials said.
Badar
Mansoor, who reputedly sent fighters to Afghanistan and ran a training
camp in North Waziristan, was killed in a drone strike near the Afghan
border, Pakistani officials and a member of his group told AFP.
"He
died in the missile attacks overnight in Miranshah. His death is a
major blow to Al-Qaeda's abilities to strike in Pakistan," a senior
Pakistani official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
His death was confirmed by one of his loyalists.
"Badar Mansoor was killed in the missile attack," a militant among his group confirmed by telephone.
Intelligence
officials in Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan, said Mansoor
had been killed, but other Pakistani officials were divided.
"We're not sure. We cannot give confirmation just like that," one of them told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Four
militants were reported killed in the pre-dawn drone strike, which
targeted a compound in Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan.
It
was only the second such attack in Pakistan since US President Barack
Obama confirmed the secret drone programme late last month.
Pakistan
and the United States are currently taking tentative steps to repair a
serious crisis in relations over last year's covert American raid that
killed Osama bin Laden and US air strikes that killed 24 Pakistani
soldiers.
The senior Pakistani intelligence official described
Mansoor as the "de facto leader of Al-Qaeda in Pakistan" after his
predecessor, Ilyas Kashmiri, was reported killed in a drone strike last
June.
Unlike Kashmiri, who had a $5 million bounty on his head,
Mansoor is not listed on the US State Department Rewards for Justice
list.
There was no immediate confirmation of his death from the
United States. But one Western counter-terrorism expert described
Mansoor as the local chief of Al-Qaeda and one of the Americans' chief
targets in Pakistan.
"If it's true, this is very good news for the
anti-terrorism fight, and this was very important for both the US and
Pakistan," the official said.
He called Mansoor Al-Qaeda's
go-between with Pakistan's umbrella Taliban movement and a member of
Al-Qaeda's leadership shura in Pakistan.
Officials said Mansoor
was responsible for attacks in Karachi and on the minority Ahmadi
community that killed nearly 100 people in the eastern city of Lahore in
May 2010.
Ahmadis, considered a sect of Islam, are subject to severe discrimination in Pakistan, which declared them non-Muslims in 1974.
Aged
about 40 and from Dera Ghazi Khan in Punjab province, Mansoor moved to
Miranshah several years ago to set up his own training camp.
"Western officials believed he was involved in sending fighters to Afghanistan," the senior Pakistani official told AFP.
US
officials say Pakistan's tribal belt provides sanctuary to Taliban
fighting in Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda groups plotting attacks on the West,
Pakistani Taliban who routinely bomb Pakistan and other foreign
fighters.
According to an AFP tally, 45 US missile strikes were
reported in Pakistan's tribal belt in 2009, 101 in 2010, 64 in 2011 and
five so far this year.
Obama said the drone programme was a
"targeted, focused effort at people who are on a list of active
terrorists". The founder of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, was
one of the most high profile casualties, killed in 2009.
But The
Bureau of Investigative Journalism, based in London, says there are
credible reports that between 282 and 535 civilians, including more than
60 children, have been killed in drone attacks since Obama took office. AFP
