WASHINGTON — Al Qaeda’s second-in-command Abu Yahya al Libi has been killed in a drone strike in Pakistan, a US official told FOX News Channel Tuesday.
Al Libi, below only Ayman al Zawahiri in the terror network’s hierarchy, was killed by a missile fired from a drone Monday along the lawless Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
About a dozen others were also killed in the strike.
“Abu Yahya was among al Qaeda’s most experienced and versatile leaders,” the US official said, adding that he had “played a critical role in the group’s planning against the West and providing oversight of the external operations efforts.”
“There is no one who even comes close in terms of replacing the expertise Al Qaeda has just lost,” the official said.
Libyan-born al Libi was believed to be in his late 30s or early 40s and was considered a leading scholar for al Qaeda, similar to American cleric Anwar al Awlaki who was killed in a September 2011 drone attack in Yemen.
Al Libi effectively became second-in-command of al Qaeda when the previous deputy, Egyptian-born Ayman al Zawahiri, took charge of the organization after Usama bin Laden’s death last year.
He escaped from the US prison in Bagram, Afghanistan in 2005 and was falsely reported dead in 2009 following a drone strike in South Waziristan.
Al Libi, who had a $1 million bounty on his head, appeared in more than a dozen lengthy al Qaeda videos and served as a “general manager” for al Qaeda’s main branch overseeing its daily operations in Pakistan’s tribal regions and managing links to affiliates around the world, the official said.