U.S. May Have Killed Chemical Weapons Expert

A Jan. 13 U.S. airstrike on a Pakistani village near the Afghanistan border killed four foreign militants, one of whom may have been the Egyptian scientist Abu Khabab al-Masri, Pakistani security officials say. The attack also killed 18 civilians and has prompted street protests.

The Pakistani officials say precise identifications are now being conducted. The Pentagon and U.S. intelligence officials have publicly said they have no information on the reported dead.

Abu Khabab, also known as Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar, was a top al Qaeda chemical weapons and explosives expert. He was on the U.S. most wanted list, with a price tag of $5 million for information leading to his capture.

According to the U.S. government website rewardsforjustice.net, Abu Khabab, 52, operated an al Qaeda terrorist training camp at Derunta, near Jalalabad, Afghanistan. Since 1999, he has distributed training manuals that contain simple recipes for crude chemical and biological weapons. U.S. forces recovered some of these manuals in Afghanistan. He also reportedly once subjected tethered dogs to nerve gas to test the weapon’s efficacy.

Two other Egyptians, one of whom was al Qaeda’s chief of insurgent operations in the Afghan province of Kunar, are also believed to have been killed in the attack. A Moroccan in charge of propaganda in the Jalalabad region is also believed to have died. However, the target of last week’s attack, al Qaeda’s second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri, was not among the dead, Pakistani and U.S. officials say.