Al-Qaida Chief Killed in Pakistan, Us Claims

The head of al-Qaida's operations in Pakistan has been killed by a US air strike in South Waziristan, close to the Pakistani border with Afghanistan, a US counter-terrorism official has said.

Usama al-Kini was believed to be responsible for attacks including the bombing of a Marriott hotel in Islamabad that killed 55 people in September, and an unsuccessful attempt to kill the former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who was later assassinated, the official added.

In the last week the US has concluded that Hellfire missiles fired from a remotely piloted Predator aircraft operated by the CIA killed Kini - along with his lieutenant Sheik Ahmed Salim Swedan - in the tribal area on 1 January. Both men were Kenyan-born and on the FBI's list of most-wanted terrorist suspects. They were indicted for the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya and were believed to have trained operatives to travel to the US and Europe.

"Al-Kini was a ... lethal operations figure within al-Qaida. The demise of a succession of senior al-Qaida figures is certain to have at least a near-term debilitating effect on the group," the official said.

Kini, whose given name was Fahid Mohammed Ally Msalam, was believed to be 32. He became head of al-Qaida's operations in Zabul province in Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks in 2001, and by 2007 was the organization's operations chief in Pakistan.

Neither the CIA nor the Pakistani government commented on reports of Kini's death. The US does not officially confirm air strikes, reflecting sensitivity over raids by US drone planes on Pakistani territory.

The strikes have prompted public outrage in Pakistan, where there is widespread anger over the breach of the country's sovereignty and the death of civilians in some of the attacks. There is also skepticism about the strikes' alleged targets.

"How many times have they said they killed the head of al-Qaida's Pakistan chapter?" said Muhammed Amir Rana, director of the Pak Institute for Peace Studies, an independent thinktank in Islamabad. "The cost is collateral damage and has the effect of encouraging violent radicalization in Pakistan."

The strikes, which have increased in frequency, have piled pressure on Pakistan's fragile civilian government. While ministers and the army routinely protest against the attacks, it is thought the strikes are tolerated because they are aimed at foreign nationals linked to al-Qaida, rather than local Taliban militants.

US forces in Afghanistan carried out about 30 missile strikes in Pakistan in 2008, according to Reuters, most of them since September. Kini was the eighth senior al-Qaida leader to have died since July, the counter-terrorism official said.

While senior military and counter terrorism authorities say the increased Predator strikes have pushed some insurgents deeper into Pakistan, the al-Qaida leader, Osama bin Laden, and his deputy, Ayman al Zawahiri, are believed to be at large and hiding in the Afghan-Pakistan border area.

Separately, a series of blasts around a theatre in the eastern city of Lahore last night injured at least six people.