U.S. targets top aide to bin Laden; Pakistanis say 18 dead

WASHINGTON — A U.S. airstrike on a suspected al-Qaida compound in remote Pakistan targeted Osama bin Laden's second-in-command, U.S. officials said Friday, adding that they were investigating the possibility that the Egyptian radical had been killed.

The CIA and other U.S. counterterrorism agencies would not comment officially on speculation that Ayman al-Zawahri was among a group of suspected senior al-Qaida members killed in the airstrike near the Afghan border early Friday. Nor would they say on the record whether U.S. warplanes or unmanned Predator drones had dropped precision-guided missiles onto suspected terrorist hideouts in the area, as reported by Pakistani officials and witnesses.

The Pakistanis said at least 18 people were killed and six wounded in the attack.

One senior U.S. counterterrorism official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, said the compound that had been attacked was known to be frequented by al-Zawahri and other high-level al-Qaida operatives, and that Washington was told by Pakistani military sources that al-Zawahri might have been among those killed.

The official said U.S. authorities have been monitoring the location for months in the hope of striking at al-Zawahri, and that Predator drones were sent in to kill him when intelligence indicated he was there.

The official said it was too early to tell if al-Zawahri or any other significant al-Qaida operatives had been killed. But he said reports out of Pakistan were encouraging, and that U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism authorities were viewing them with unusual optimism.

The official acknowledged that false reports of al-Zawahri's death have occurred from time to time. "There is something different about this one," the official said. "This seems to have validity."

The U.S. counterterrorism officials said Washington was eagerly awaiting more information from Pakistan after daybreak today. They said it could take several days before the bodies were positively identified.

A senior Pakistani intelligence official told The Associated Press that the remains of some bodies were removed after the strike and DNA tests were being conducted, but would not say by whom. The official spoke on condition of anonymity.

An AP reporter who visited the scene about 12 hours after what villagers said was an airstrike saw three destroyed houses, hundreds of yards apart. Villagers, who denied links to the Taliban or al-Qaida, had buried at least 15 people, including women and children, and were digging for more bodies in the rubble. No security forces were in the area.

An Egyptian doctor who was imprisoned in his native country for terrorism, al-Zawahri has long been bin Laden's chief aide and the spiritual head of al-Qaida. Al-Zawahri has replaced bin Laden in recent years as the most visible public figure in al-Qaida, issuing videotaped statements criticizing the U.S. occupation of Iraq and calling on observant Muslims to fight in Iraq and elsewhere against U.S. and Western interests.

For years, al-Zawahri and bin Laden were inseparable, according to several U.S. counterterrorism officials. But they are believed to have been separated for some time, in part to make it harder for their pursuers to kill them both at the same time. The U.S. counterterrorism official said it was unlikely they were together Friday.

"They have been separated. Not too far away, but separate," the official said.

U.S. officials have long thought that bin Laden and al-Zawahri, who fled Afghanistan after the U.S.-led war to oust the Taliban in 2001, were hiding along the rugged Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Other senior al-Qaida figures, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the organizer of the Sept. 11 attacks, have been captured or killed in Pakistan.

Many counterterrorism officials have said they believe al-Qaida is now a much more decentralized organization than it was before Sept. 11, when it ran training camps in Afghanistan.

U.S. officials said killing al-Zawahri would be the biggest success yet in Washington's war on terrorism, but that it could also spark a backlash from al-Qaida sympathizers around the world.

Bin Laden has not been heard from since December 2004, and some U.S. officials suspect that he might be incapacitated. Other U.S. authorities said they believe al-Zawahri has long been the true mastermind of al-Qaida.

Witnesses said 14 of the people killed in the blasts belonged to one family. Haji Haroon Rashid, a legislator from Bajaur, said he witnessed the attack and that a spy plane had been flying over the area for the past four days.

Los Angeles Times reporters Mubashir Zaidi, Greg Miller and Paul Watson contributed to this report.