Al-Qaida Confirms Death of Poisons Expert in Pakistan

Al-Qaida today posted a statement on the internet confirming a key explosive and poisons expert had been killed.

Midhat Mursi, a 55-year-old Egyptian also known Abu Khabab, was reported killed on Monday by a CIA Predator drone operating over Pakistan's tribal areas.

The US had accused him of training hundreds of terrorists to use poisons and explosives and had put a $5m bounty on his head.

Mursi is believed to have led chemical weapons research at an al-Qaida camp outside Jalalabad. Videos were broadcast in 2002 that appeared to show dogs dying in the experiment.He was also accused of training the suicide bombers who killed 17 US sailors in the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, and is linked to plots to bomb Los Angeles airport on New Year's Eve 1999 and bring down a transatlantic airliner with a shoebomb.

The al-Qaida statement said Mursi "left behind other experts who were trained by him", according to an Associated Press translation, and was signed by Mustafa Abu al-Yazeed, al-Qaida's top leader in Afghanistan. It appeared on a militant website frequently used by the group.

Three other al-Qaida commanders were also killed, the statement said, but it did not name them or say how the men died.

Reports earlier this week said six people were killed in the air strike. The missiles hit a border village in south Waziristan, prompting complaints from Pakistani politicians and media that the US was operating in the country's sovereign airspace.

Mursi was previously reported killed in a January 2006 missile strike from a CIA Predator drone that targeted and missed al-Qaida's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Pakistani officials said Mursi was among five militants killed but the bodies were never found.