al Qaeda chief killed in US air strikes at Miranshah

Lahore, Sep 10: The chief of al Qaeda's Pakistan unit, Abu Haris is learnt to have been killed in missile strikes by the US in the Miranshah tribal area on Monday, Seo 8. A total of 26 persons were killed in the attack.

According to sources close to a Taliban commander Jalaluddin Haqqani, four guards and two wives of the commander were also killed in the attack. While four missiles hit a madrassa run by Haqqani, three landed in populated areas. It could not be known if Haqqani was present at the seminary at the time of the strike. Haqqani, a close aide of Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar, has not been seen since the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001. The latest attack, in which three al Qaeda leaders - Hamza Arabi, Qasim Hamza and Musa Arabi - were also killed, comes at a time when the US-led coalition troops are investigating last week's ground attack in Angoor Adda area of South Waziristan that claimed 20 lives, reported the Daily Times. Sources in the US military said that it had targeted Haqqani's network during an operation in eastern Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan, and detained two suspected militants.

The raid was launched on Monday, Sep 8 in Khost province against militants suspected of carrying out roadside bomb attacks, said the US military, and added that it had found numerous AK-47s, grenades and other military equipment during the raid in Khost.

On Tuesday, Sep 9 two rockets hit central Kabul, landing in an area near the main North Atlantic Treaty Organisation base and the presidential palace but causing no casualties or damage, said Afghanistan's Interior Ministry.

ANI