Zawahri not present during attack: Pakistan official

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Al Qaeda’s second-in-command, Ayman
al-Zawahri, was not in a village near the Afghan border that
was hit by a U.S. airstrike early on Friday morning, a senior
Pakistani government official said on Saturday.

“Al-Zawahri was not there at the time of the attack,” the
official told Reuters, after U.S. intelligence sources in
Washington had earlier said the airstrike that killed at least
18 people in northern Pakistan had targeted Osama bin Laden’s
deputy.

Pakistan condemned on Saturday an airstrike on a village
near the Afghan border that U.S. intelligence sources say was
aimed at killing al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri.

The government regretted the loss of civilian lives,
Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said. Tribesmen in
Damadola village in the Bajaur tribal agency said 18 of their
kinfolk were killed by the airstrike early on Friday morning,
while a senior Pakistani government official said Zawahri was
not in the village at the time.

“We want to assure the people we will not allow such an
incident to reoccur,” Ahmed said, reading a statement which
termed the attack as “highly condemnable.”