U.S. strike aims for al-qaeda’s 2nd in command

U.S. missiles killed more than a dozen people in northwestern Pakistan early Monday in a strike that apparently was aimed at al Qaeda’s No. 2 leader, the charismatic and influential jihadist known as Abu Yahya al-Libi, U.S. and Pakistani officials said.

The terrorist commander’s fate remained unclear late in the day, amid a swirl of rumors inside Pakistan that the longtime deputy to Osama bin Laden had been badly wounded or perhaps killed in the strike. Libi’s death, if confirmed, would represent one of the biggest successes against al Qaeda since bin Laden was killed by Navy SEALs 13 months ago.

“This would be a major blow to ‘core’ al Qaeda, removing the No. 2 leader twice in less than a year,” said a senior U.S. official with access to classified reports from Pakistan, where officials from both countries were working to ascertain Libi’s fate. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity.

U.S. and Pakistani officials confirmed that missiles struck a house in North Waziristan, a tribal province on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, around sunrise Monday, and that multiple deaths had been reported.

Libi, who was thought to be in his late 40s, has long been one of al Qaeda’s most popular and influential commanders, and he had moved into the No. 2 spot after the death in August of Atiyah abd al-Rahman, a Libyan national who was killed in a missile strike in North Waziristan. Libi managed the group’s day-to-day affairs as deputy to al Qaeda’s senior commander, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

A former member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, Libi rose to celebrity within al Qaeda’s ranks after he escaped in 2005 from the U.S. detention facility in Bagram, Afghanistan.