Prisoner’s tip led to U.S. strike

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – Al-Qaida’s second-in-command attended a meeting last year at the home that was hit by U.S. missiles last week in a strike believed to have killed at least four of the terrorism network’s operatives, Pakistani intelligence officials said today.

The latest revelation came a day after thousands of Pakistani protesters took to the streets, chanting “Death to America” and calling for holy war as outrage persisted over the airstrike that devastated a remote border village. The largest was held in Peshawar, capital of North West Frontier Province where Damadola is located.

Ayman al-Zawahiri, the apparent target of the U.S. attack Jan. 13, met his deputy, Abu Farraj al-Libbi, in Damadola last year, the security official said.

Al-Libbi, a Libyan, had confessed to Pakistani interrogators after his capture in May 2005 that he met al-Zawahiri at Damadola, near the Afghan border, earlier in the year.

Al-Libbi was captured after a shootout in another remote hamlet in northwestern Pakistan.

Another high-ranking intelligence official confirmed al-Libbi’s account of the meeting, which took place a few months before his arrest. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

“His statement was later verified and we were able to confirm that al-Zawahiri visited Damadola,” the first official said.

The home was among three destroyed in the pre-dawn airstrike Jan. 13, which killed 13 villagers.

U.S. and Pakistani intelligence – with the aid of local tribesmen and Afghans – began monitoring the home after al-Libbi’s confession, the officials said.

Pakistani authorities suspect al-Qaida operatives had gathered last week at Damadola to plan attacks early this year in Afghanistan and Pakistan, when the meeting was torn apart by U.S. missiles, another intelligence official said.

Officials, all speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, believe at least four foreign militants also may have died, including an al-Qaida explosives and chemical weapons expert and a son-in-law of al-Zawahiri.

The Egyptian-born al-Zawahiri was believed to have skipped the meeting and was not killed.