Two senior Al Qaeda operatives were killed in a CIA missile strike on New Year’s Day in Pakistan, including a suspect in the suicide bombing of Islamabad’s Marriott Hotel in September, a senior U.S. counterterrorism official said Thursday.
The two operatives also had been indicted in the United States for their logistics roles in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa, the official said.
The strike, which took place in the Wana region of South Waziristan, was carried out by a Predator drone armed with Hellfire missiles and operated by the CIA, the official said.
The counterterrorism official said that CIA analysts had concluded in recent days that “these two guys met violent deaths on Jan. 1” and that “they were believed to be planning additional attacks” at the time.
One was identified as a Kenyan national known as Usama al-Kini and who was believed to be Al Qaeda’s chief of operations in Pakistan. The other, also a Kenya native, was identified as Sheik Ahmed Salim Swedan.
Both men were on the FBI’s list of most-wanted terrorists and had been indicted in the Southern District of New York. The United States had been offering rewards of $5million for information leading to the capture of either man.
Their deaths would place them among eight senior Al Qaeda figures reported killed in CIA Predator strikes over the past six months.
Others have included Rashid Rauf, the alleged mastermind of a plot to blow up airliners over the Atlantic Ocean in 2006, and Abu Khabab al-Masri, who was described as an explosives expert in charge of Al Qaeda’s chemical and biological weapons efforts.
The stepped-up missile campaign has been part of a broader U.S. effort launched after a series of high-level intelligence assessments concluded that Al Qaeda was regrouping in Pakistan’s rugged border region, with fresh flows of money and militants from Europe and elsewhere.
CIA officials declined to comment on the strike, saying it is agency policy not to discuss operations.
On the FBI’s Web site, Kini is identified as Fahid Mohammed Ally Msalam, age 32.
The bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad last September destroyed a hotel that was frequented by Westerners.
Among the more than 50 people killed were two U.S. soldiers assigned to the American Embassy.
The 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were among the deadliest Al Qaeda strikes before the Sept. 11 attacks, killing at least 224. Kini and Swedan were believed to have played logistical roles.
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