WASHINGTON: US intelligence has no reason to believe Al-Qaeda s number two was killed or wounded in a recent missile attack in Pakistan, US officials said Monday.
CBS News reported Friday that it had obtained an intercepted message from a Taliban commander urgently requesting a doctor to treat Egyptian Ayman Al-Zawahiri, believed to be Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden s right-hand man.
There is no reason at this point to believe that Zawahiri has been killed or injured, a US intelligence official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A US counter-terrorism official also said there was no evidence that Zawahiri was wounded or killed.
There is nothing out there that lends any credence to that, the official said, also insisting on anonymity.
Pakistan s Taliban movement issued a vehement denial Saturday that Zawahiri was killed or wounded in the July 28 missile strike.
Al-Qaeda in a statement posted on an Islamist website acknowledged that the strike killed an Al-Qaeda weapons expert, Midhat Mursi Al-Sayid Umar, also known as Abu Al-Khabab Al-Masri.
Pakistani security officials said Midhat Mursi Al-Sayid Umar s 18-year-old son, another Egyptian, two Saudis and a Pakistani also were killed.
The Al-Qaeda statement named the other slain militants as the mujahed sheikh and educator Abu Mohammad Ibrahim bin Abi Al-Faraj Al-Masri,
Abdul Wahhab Al-Masri and Abu Islam Al-Masri.
Some of their children also died with them, it said without confirming they had been killed by a missile. -AFP
