WASHINGTON (REUTERS) — A missile fired by remote control from a pilotless CIA aircraft has hit what was believed to be a group of senior al Qaeda members in southeastern Afghanistan, killing at least one of them, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
“It was a CIA Predator missile that was fired upon what was thought to be a senior al Qaeda official,” said the official, who asked not to be identified. He said the attack took place Monday night.
“At least one was killed and possibly others. It’s not clear who the individual was,” the official said, adding that bad weather in the region had prevented a mission to identify bodies.
The al Qaeda leader who was killed in the attack was taller than the handful of others surrounding him, leading to some speculation about whether the United States may have hit its most wanted man in the war on terrorism — Osama bin Laden.
Bin Laden, whose height is estimated on the FBI’s most wanted terrorist list to be 6 feet, 4 inches to 6 feet, 6 inches, is blamed by the United States for the Sept. 11 attacks on America that killed about 3,000 people.
But another U.S. official said several al Qaeda leaders are tall, including Ayman al-Zawahri, bin Laden’s top lieutenant.
U.S. officials believe it was an al Qaeda leader because of the manner in which the others around him were paying homage. “You can tell from overhead that one guy’s the center of attention,” the official said.
“The central figure had a close encounter of the worst kind with a Hellfire missile,” he said. But the official stressed that the identity of the dead man was not yet known and there were no other indicators in the aftermath of the missile attack to suggest bin Laden had been killed.
CIA Director George Tenet told the Senate Intelligence Committee Wednesday that he did not know whether bin Laden was dead or alive.
Citing a high Pentagon source, CBS News reported that several senior leaders of bin Laden’s al Qaeda network died when the missile hit the group near the Zawar Khili cave complex in the mountains of southeastern Afghanistan.
The network said it was believed that senior al Qaeda members, including bin Laden, have been holed up at Zawar Khili since escaping from the Tora Bora cave complex, which was bombed two months ago.
The war in Afghanistan marks the first time the United States has deployed Predator drones armed with Hellfire anti-tank missiles, which can be fired by a remote operator watching a live video feed from the drone.
