‘Senior Al Qaeda commander killed ’

[Lefty Wilbury]

http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/03/top4.htm

‘Senior Al Qaeda commander killed ’

By Ismail Khan

PESHAWAR, Dec 2: A senior Al Qaeda commander has been killed in the Thursday missile attack at a house in the North Waziristan Agency, sources said.

The sources said that Al Qaeda operational commander Hamza Rabia, said to be of Syrian origin, was among the five killed in the missile attack on a mud-house in Asoray village in Mirali tehsil, to the east of North Waziristan’s regional headquarters, Miranshah.

Officials and tribal witnesses said that among those killed were three foreigners of Middle-Eastern origin. While the administration in Miranshah claimed the casualties were the result of an explosion inside the house, tribal witnesses insist that a hail of missiles fired from unmanned air vehicle struck the house at around 1.45 am.

A drone is usually armed with two hellfire missiles and judging from the six explosions, the locals claimed they had heard, it is possible that more than two UAVs took part in the Thursday’s action.

The sources said that Hamza, who carried the local alias of Nawab to disguise his identity, was among those killed but his body as well of two other foreign militants were quickly taken away by their comrades and buried at an undisclosed location.

Hamza had escaped a similar attack at his location in Mosaki in Mirali on Nov 5 that had left eight people dead including his wife and children. Hamza was said to have been slightly wounded in the leg.

The authorities then had also attributed the incident to an explosion caused by an improvised explosive device.

 

[Lefty Wilbury]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10303175/

Top al-Qaida officer reportedly killed
Group's operational leader Rabia killed by missile in Pakistan, officials say

By Robert Windrem and Carol Grisanti
NBC News
Updated: 1:00 a.m. ET Dec. 3, 2005

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The operational commander of al-Qaida and a top-five official in the terrorist organization was killed early Thursday by a CIA missile attack on a safehouse in Pakistan, officials have told NBC News.

Pakistani sources said that Hamza Rabia was one of five men killed at a safehouse located in the village of Asorai, in western Pakistan, near the town of Mirali.

Among those killed in the attack were two Pakistanis and three Arabs, said the Pakistani sources, who asked to remain anonymous. The attacks were carried out between 1:45 a.m. and 2 a.m. local time on Thursday.

Local residents said that the men were killed by an unknown number of missiles fired by an unmanned Predator aircraft. The witnesses said that missile remnants bearing U.S. markings remain in the area. They also said they had heard six explosions, but it is uncertain how many of these were the result of missile attacks and how many may have been the result of the missiles detonating explosives inside the safehouse.

Officially, neither the U.S. government nor the Pakistani government would confirm a successful attack. U.S. officials confirm a missile attack took place, but would not confirm that Rabia was killed. A high-ranking Pakistani official confirmed that Hamza Rabia had been killed in a Predator attack.

Rabia had moved up al-Qaida ranks
Rabia has been sought by both U.S. and Pakistani officials for more than two years. Pakistan has offered a $1 million reward for his capture. He is believed to have participated in the planning for two assassination attempts against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on Dec. 14 and Dec. 25, 2003. At that time, Rabia was believed to be the chief deputy to Abu Faraj al-Libbi, al-Qaida's operational chief and the No. 3 man in the organization. In May, Pakistani security forces captured Abu Faraj and turned him over to the U.S.

U.S. officials have said that Rabia succeeded Abu Faraj as operations chief. Rabia was brought into al-Qaida by Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's No. 2. Like al-Zawahiri, Rabia is an Egyptian. U.S. officials have described him recently as "top-five al-Qaida" and, as one US official said on Friday, "killing him would be indeed a very big deal."

Rabia was the target of another Predator attack on Nov. 5, according to local Pakistani officials. During that strike, in the village of Mosaki, eight people were killed in what is now described as an unsuccessful attempt to kill Rabia. Local officials have told NBC News that the dead included the wife and children of the al-Qaida leader.

Both the village of Asorai, where Thursday's attack took place, and Mosaki, where the November attack took place, are within 45 minutes of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The area is a hiding place for top al-Qaida officials, according to U.S., Pakistani and Afghan officials.

 

[Emmett]

Dear Mrs. Rabia,

It is with soul felt regret that I must inform you that your worthless ass son, Hamza has been killed in the line of duty somewhere in Pakistan. It is a good possibility that he may have trusted the wrong person thereby it resulted in his being detected, or he may have just been sold down the river by one of his sorry cohorts for the million bucks that was on his head!
Anyway, it may warm your heart to know that God has forgiven him anyway and assigned him a good job in heaven. Well, not actually heaven. He has been assigned latrene cleaning detail at one of heaven's brokerage offices in Isreal.