Islamabad, Pakistan – Two al-Qaeda militants reported missing and suspected killed in Friday’s U.S. missile attack in Pakistan are key regional commanders along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, Afghan and Pakistani analysts said.
The administrator of Pakistan’s Bajaur border district said Tuesday that four or five non-Pakistani militants had died – along with 13 to 18 Pakistani residents – in the missile attack on homes in the village of Damadola.
Two of the dead may be an Egyptian known as Abu Ubaidah and a Syrian, Marwan As-Suri, said an Afghan source with links to al-Qaeda.
Abu Ubaidah, in his mid-40s, is deputy commander of al-Qaeda forces in Kunar, a ruggedly mountainous province where U.S. troops fought offensives last year to clear out militants, said the source, who asked not to be identified. Kunar is one of three or four Afghan provinces where the war in Afghanistan remains at its most intensive – and one reason is that guerrillas have been able to flee across the border into Pakistan.
Marwan As-Suri, believed to be in his 30s, is a Syrian who recently had been appointed to head al-Qaeda operations in part of the Pakistani areas bordering Kunar, the Afghan said.
ABC News reported Wednesday that a third militant, known as al-Qaeda’s master bombmaker and chemical-weapons expert, also was killed. Pakistani authorities identified him as Midhat Mursi, 52, also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri.
The missiles destroyed three homes in Damadola hours after a dinner for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. Bajaur district’s administrator, Fahim Wazir, said Tuesday that 10 to 12 non-Pakistani militants had been invited to the feast.
Pakistani intelligence sources have told journalists in Pakistan that one invited guest who did not attend was al-Qaeda’s No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri.
U.S. officials, apparently concluding that al-Zawahri was present, ordered the attack, for the first news of the strike came from American intelligence sources in Washington who said al-Zawahri had been killed.
According to the Afghan source, another important al-Qaeda invitee to the dinner was Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi, who reportedly has served as a liaison between al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda- backed guerrilla leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
It was not clear whether al-Iraqi attended, and there was no report that he was missing.
