ISLAMABAD, 4 December 2005 — A top field commander of the Al-Qaeda terror network was killed Thursday in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal agency. However, there were different versions of how the Egyptian-born terrorist, Abu Hamza Rabia, met his end. While Pakistani officials said he was killed while handling explosives, residents of Haisori, a village near Mir Ali in the tribal agency where he died, said he was the target of a missile attack by Pakistani military.
Rabia’s death was confirmed by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf on his arrival in Kuwait on an official visit, although the Pakistani military has not found the body and is relying on intelligence reports and intercepted messages between Al-Qaeda members.
“Yes indeed, 200 percent. I think he was killed the day before yesterday if I’m not wrong,” Musharraf told reporters.
The military said Rabia was among five people killed in an explosion at a house where they were hiding in North Waziristan.
Rabia, in his 30s, took over the No. 3 spot, behind Bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy Ayman Al-Zawahiri, after the capture of Abu Faraj Farj Al-Liby in Pakistan in May, US and Pakistani security officers said.
Rabia was involved in plots to attack the United States and his death was a serious blow for Al-Qaeda, according to a US counterterrorism official in Washington.
“After Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Rabia was the most senior Al-Qaeda official for international terrorism planning,” the official said. “Rabia served in the leadership group as chief of international operations planning. His international portfolio included planning attacks against the United States.”
Pakistani intelligence sources said two of those killed with Rabia were also believed to be Arabs, while the other two dead were boys related to the tribesman harboring them.
Rabia was involved in two attempts on Musharraf’s life in December 2003 and security forces had been hunting him for some time, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said.
Officials said the blast at the mud house in Haisori, 30 km from the Afghan border, was caused by explosives stored for bomb-making, and government spokesmen denied Rabia was killed in a military operation.
However intelligence sources, who requested anonymity, said after Rabia’s presence was confirmed by electronic tracking, the house was hit by rockets or missiles in an aerial attack, raising the possibility of US involvement.
Rabia was suffering from a broken leg resulting from an attack on another house he had been staying at in North Waziristan on Nov. 5, intelligence sources said. He escaped on that occasion but eight people, including his wife and children, were killed in that operation.
After the explosion in Haisori, intelligence officials said they intercepted a message between militants saying “Nawab” was dead. Nawab was Rabia’s code name.
Al-Arabiya television said it had been contacted by a person claiming to be from Al-Qaeda denying Rabia has been killed. The Al-Arabiya presenter cited the caller as saying that five people were killed in the explosion. They were two local men, two Tajiks and an Arab called Suleiman Al-Moghrabi.
Many Al-Qaeda militants took refuge in Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal belt after US-led forces ousted Afghanistan’s Taleban in 2001 for refusing to hand over Bin Laden.
Rabia’s death was reported a month after a suspected Al-Qaeda militant was killed and another captured in the southwestern city of Quetta. Officials have yet to confirm the identity of those militants but Al-Jazeera television said one of them was Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, a Syrian with a $5 million US reward on his head.
