al-Qaida Operative Killed in Pakistan

By RIAZ KHAN

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said Saturday that a senior al-Qaida operative was killed in an explosion in a northwestern Pakistan tribal area.

There were conflicting reports, though, about what triggered the explosion that also killed four other people. A government official said it occurred while Hamza Rabia and others were making a bomb, but a Pakistani newspaper said the militants were killed in a missile attack.

Musharraf, arriving in Kuwait at the start of a three-nation visit to the Middle East, confirmed Saturday that Rabia was among five people killed in Thursday’s explosion in North Waziristan, a tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

“Yes, indeed, 200 percent confirmed,” Musharraf said.

An intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of his position, said Rabia was believed to be operational commander of al-Qaida militants in North Waziristan and adjoining South Waziristan, he said.

The explosion near North Waziristan’s main town, Miran Shah, was triggered as suspected Islamic militants were making a bomb, a top government administrator, Syed Zaheerul Islam, said Thursday.

Islam said the blast also killed four other people, including two area residents, and left two others injured. He did not identify them.

But Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported Saturday that Rabia, believed to be of Syrian origin, was killed in a missile attack on a mud-walled home in Isori, a village east of Miran Shah.

The attack may have been launched from two pilotless planes, the newspaper said, citing sources it did not identify.

Associates from outside Pakistan retrieved the bodies of Rabia and two other foreigners and buried them in an unknown location, the report said.

Military officials have said hundreds of Arab, Afghan and Central Asian militants are in North and South Waziristan.

Pakistan – a key U.S. ally in the war against terrorism – has deployed thousands of troops in the area, fighting intense battles with militants and killing and capturing several of them.