Key al-Qaida chief dies in U.S. strike

ISLAMABAD – A U.S. missile strike in Pakistan has killed al-Qaida’s operations chief for the country, U.S. officials said Thursday, further shredding the terrorist group’s upper ranks as it struggles to cope with the death of its founder.

Abu Hafs al Shahri was said to be in line for increasingly important duties as other senior leaders were eliminated around him.

In May, U.S. special forces killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, and a drone attack in August killed al-Qaida’s new deputy leader, Atiyah Abd al Rahman. Earlier this month Pakistani forces arrested the head of the group’s operations against the West, Younis al Mauritani.

Experts on al-Qaida said the strike reflected a closer working relationship against the terrorist group among Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States, despite U.S.-Pakistani tensions over the bin Laden raid, in which American troops attacked a target in Pakistan without notifying the country’s authorities in advance.

“Al-Qaida is withering away in the Afghanistan and Pakistan region,” said Rasul Bakhsh Rais, a professor of politics at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. “With this new technology and this greater cooperation between Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States, al-Qaida doesn’t stand a chance of regrouping.”

U.S. officials think that Ayman al-Zawahri, an Egyptian who succeeded bin Laden as al-Qaida chief, is hiding in Pakistan, most likely in the tribal area.