ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — One of al Qaeda’s top five leaders, said to be responsible for planning overseas strikes, was killed by Pakistani security forces, with U.S. help, in a rocket attack near the Afghan border, American and Pakistani officials said yesterday.
Hamza Rabia, a key associate of al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri, died Thursday in an explosion in the North Waziristan tribal area, and his remains were identified with DNA tests, Information Minister Sheik Rashid Ahmed said.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf confirmed Rabia had been killed.
“Yes, indeed, 200 percent confirmed,” Gen. Musharraf said in Kuwait at the start of a three-nation visit in the Middle East.
Two U.S. counterterrorism officials, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, also confirmed Rabia’s death but would not elaborate on the circumstances.
The officials said Rabia was believed to be an Egyptian and head of al Qaeda’s foreign operations, possibly as senior as the No. 3 official in the terrorist group that carried out the September 11 attacks. That would put him in a tier just below Osama bin Laden and al-Zawahri.
“He was al Qaeda’s number five and this is what we know,” Mr. Ahmed said.
Rabia filled the vacuum created this year by the capture of the previous operations chief, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, the two U.S. officials said.
As head of operations, Rabia would have been responsible for recruiting, training, networking and, most significant, planning international terrorist activities outside the Afghan-Pakistan region.
One of the officials said Rabia also may have been involved in operations inside the region.
He had a wide array of terrorist contacts, the other official said, and was believed to be trying to reinvigorate al Qaeda’s operations.
The circumstances of Rabia’s death are still not clear.
A senior Pakistani intelligence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said a missile attack triggered a huge explosion in a stockpile of bomb-making materials, grenades and other munitions.
Other Pakistani intelligence officials, asking not to be identified, said U.S. assistance played a critical role in tracking down Rabia and “eliminating the threat” that he posed.
NBC News, citing unnamed officials, reported last night that Rabia was killed early Thursday morning by a missile launched from an unmanned aircraft, a Predator drone, controlled by the CIA.
The CIA would not comment on the report.
Earlier, a top government administrator, Syed Zaheerul Islam, said Rabia died in an explosion while making bombs at a home near Miran Shah.
Mr. Islam said the blast killed four other persons, including two local residents, and injured two others, who have not been identified.
Al-Libbi twice tried to assassinate Gen. Musharraf for making the Islamic nation a key ally of the United States in its war on terrorism. Al-Libbi was captured in northwestern Pakistan on May 2 and later turned over to the United States for further investigation.
The Dawn newspaper, citing sources it did not identify, reported that the attack on a mud-walled home near Miran Shah may have been launched from two pilotless planes, or drones.
Miran Shah is a strategic tribal region where remnants of al Qaeda are believed to have been hiding and where Pakistani forces have conducted several operations against them.
Military officials have said hundreds of Arab, Afghan and Central Asian militants are in North and South Waziristan.
Pakistan has deployed thousands of troops in the area, fighting intense battles with militants and killing and capturing several of them.
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