U.S. strikes target two top al-Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan

PanARMENIAN.Net - The United States carried out strikes in Afghanistan on Sunday, October 23 targeting two of al-Qaeda's most senior leaders in the country, the Pentagon said on Wednesday, according to Reuters.

The U.S. military is still assessing the results of the strikes against the two leaders who were targeted at command-and-control locations in remote areas of Kunar province, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said in a statement.

U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the air strikes, carried out by drones, were the most significant attacks against the group in Afghanistan in several years.

However, the need for a strike shows the resilience of the group more than 15 years after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan that toppled the Taliban government that harbored the al-Qaeda network responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

"There's something depressing about the fact that the U.S. is still trying to eliminate al-Qaeda leaders and safe havens in Afghanistan," said Michael Kugelman, a South Asia specialist at the Woodrow Wilson Center. One of the targets was Faruq al-Qatani, who served as al Qaeda's leader for northeastern Afghanistan and had been assigned by the group's leadership to re-establish safe havens in the country, Cook said in the statement.

"He was a senior planner for attacks against the United States, and has a long history of directing deadly attacks against U.S. forces and our coalition allies," Cook said.

Al-Qatani, also known as Al-Nayf Salam Muhammad Ujaym al-Hababi, was named a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" by the U.S. Treasury Department earlier this year for his role in al-Qaeda.

The other, Bilal al-Utabi, was involved in "efforts to re-establish a safe haven in Afghanistan from which to threaten the West, and in efforts to recruit and train foreign fighters," Cook added.

A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the strikes were carried out simultaneously against two different compounds, Reuters says.

Multiple Hellfire missiles were fired at each compound, the official said.

The United States had been looking for al-Qatani for four years and tracking and targeting him involved multiple U.S. agencies, the official added.

The official described al-Qatani as the No.1 al Qaeda official in Afghanistan, while al-Utabi was No.2 or No.3 in the hierarchy.