Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook confirmed in a statement today that Faruq al Qatani, a senior al Qaeda leader who was plotting against the US, was killed in an airstrike last month. Cook’s full statement reads:
We can now confirm that the precision strike conducted by the U.S. military on Oct. 23 in Kunar, Afghanistan, resulted in the death of senior al-Qaeda leader Faruq al-Qatani. Al-Qatani was al-Qaeda’s emir for eastern Afghanistan and one of the terrorist group’s senior plotters of attacks against the United States. This successful strike is another example of U.S. operations to degrade international terrorist networks and target terrorist leaders who seek to attack the U.S. homeland, our interests and our allies abroad. Another al-Qaeda leader in Afghanistan, Bilal al-Utabi, was also targeted in a separate strike. We are still assessing the results of that strike.
The Long War Journal has written about Qatani on a number of occasions. He was a prominent al Qaeda member for years. Osama bin Laden’s files show that Qatani was trusted to establish safe havens in Afghanistan more than six years ago, meaning he had plenty of time to establish a robust network in the country. In addition to having a hand in al Qaeda’s “external operations” – that is, plots against the West – he also supported the Taliban-led insurgency against the Afghan government, US forces and their allies.
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