More dead terrorists, and that is always good news:
One of al-Qaida’s top five leaders, a key associate of Ayman al-Zawahri, was tracked down with U.S. help and killed by Pakistani security forces in a rocket attack near the Afghan border, officials said Saturday.
Hamza Rabia, believed to have become al-Qaida’s operational commander after the arrest of Abu Farraj al-Libbi in northwestern Pakistan in May, ranks somewhere between third and fifth in the terror network’s hierarchy, officials said.
He was among five people who died in an explosion Thursday in the North Waziristan tribal area. Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said Rabia’s remains were identified via a DNA test.
In Kuwait, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf confirmed that Rabia was killed.
”Yes, indeed, 200 percent confirmed,” Musharraf said at the start of a three-nation visit in the Middle East.
I did notice and appreciate that Hamza Rabia was not described as Ayman al-Zawahri’s number two man.