 A senior al-Qaida operative was killed by a missile fired from an unmanned CIA Predator aircraft near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border earlier this week, ABC News reported Friday. Intelligence officials, who were not identified in the report, said al-Qaida operative Haitham al-Yemeni had been tracked for some time with the hope that he would lead them to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, ABC reported. With the capture of the No. 3 leader of al-Qaida, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, in northwest Pakistan earlier this month, officials decided to strike at al-Yemeni rather than risk that he would go into hiding, ABC reported. The CIA declined to comment on the report. |