A senior Al Qaeda terrorist , who directed operations in the region of Afghanistan and Pakistan and had links with terrorist groups in East Africa was killed in a missile attack, said a senior U.S. counterterrorism official.
There are strong indications that senior al Qaeda operations planner Saleh al-Somali has died,” a senior U.S. official told reporters.
The Somali-born key al Qaeda operational planner, would have died in a U.S. drone strike in northwestern Pakistan Tuesday.
Al-Somali took orders from al-Qaeda’s top leaders and worked with Western recruits when they arrived in the tribal areas of western Pakistan where the terrorist group has sought refuge, the official said.
Al-Somali was probably involved in planning attacks against the U.S. and Europe, the official said. He was an al-Qaeda link to al-Shabaab, a Somali-based militant group, the official said.
Before assuming his operational role, al-Somali was part of al-Qaeda’s propaganda operations.
