Al-Qaeda chemical expert believed killed in Pakistan: officials

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) - Al-Qaeda's top expert on chemical and biological weapons is believed to have been killed Monday in a suspected US missile strike in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas, security officials said.

Egyptian militant Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar, also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri, had a five-million-dollar bounty on his head and allegedly trained hundreds of extremists at camps in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region.

Officials earlier said that three Arab militants and three Pakistani boys were killed when missiles fired by a suspected US drone hit a house attached to a mosque in the South Waziristan tribal district.

"We believe he was killed in this strike," a senior intelligence official based in the northwestern city of Peshawar told AFP on condition of anonymity. "It was his hideout and information that has been shared with us says he was targeted in this strike."

There was no immediate confirmation from the US-led coalition in Afghanistan or from Washington. Umar's wife and children were believed to have been injured in the attack, Pakistani officials said. Residents said the victims of the missile strike were hastily buried in the hours after the attack.

Pakistan's military said it was still seeking confirmation. Claims that Umar was killed in another air strike in the Bajaur tribal region in January 2006 turned out to be untrue.

"We have not yet received any authentic information from the area from our teams," Pakistani military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told AFP.

Pakistani officials said Umar had given explosives training to a generation of militants, including British "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, who tried to blow up a transatlantic jet in December 2001.

Umar was a trainer at Al-Qaeda's Derunta camp in Afghanistan in the 1990s "where he provided hundreds of mujahedin with hands-on training in the use of poisons and explosives," according to the website of the US Government Rewards for Justice programme.

"Since 1999, he has distributed training manuals that contain instructions for making chemical and biological weapons. Some of these training manuals were recovered by US forces in Afghanistan," it said.

Residents in South Waziristan said they heard US aircraft and pilotless Predator drones flying above the area before and after the strike, adding that there had been alarm over similar flights throughout the weekend.

A group of Arabs, believed to be Egyptians, had rented a compound containing the house and a madrassa from a local tribesman, Malik Salat, residents said. "This (the attack) has been done by coalition forces, we did not do it," another Pakistani security official said on condition of anonymity.

Both the US-led coalition and a separate NATO force in Afghanistan said they were not involved in the missile strike. However, the US Central Intelligence Agency is also known to operate drones in the region.

Pakistan has protested over a wave of missile strikes attributed to US-led forces in Afghanistan in recent months that have killed dozens of local people. A missile strike in January believed to have been carried out by the US killed Abu Laith al-Libi, a senior Al-Qaeda commander.

The latest attack took place hours before talks between US President George W. Bush and Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani at the White House that focused on Islamabad's commitment to the "war on terror."

Gilani said after the talks at the White House that Pakistan was "committed to fight against those extremists and terrorists who are destroying and making the world not safe."

Pakistan's fledgling government caused concern in Washington by launching talks with Taliban militants shortly after defeating political allies of US-backed President Pervez Musharraf in elections in February.
© AFP 2008


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