PESHAWAR, 23 April 2006 — Pakistani officials yesterday said a senior Al-Qaeda figure who was killed recently could have provided vital clues about Osama Bin Laden and his key associates.
The Al-Qaeda militant known as Marwan Hadid Al-Suri was killed in a gunbattle with Pakistani soldiers in a restive tribal area bordering Afghanistan on Thursday.
“It is our bad luck that we could not catch him alive,” a senior security official said.
“He was a big man, we could have extracted information about Al-Qaeda No. 1 one and No. 2,” he said, referring to Bin Laden and his deputy Ayman Al-Zawahiri. However, investigators found no information on the whereabouts of Bin Laden, Zawahiri, or Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, he said.
Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao described Al-Suri’s death as a significant blow to Al-Qaeda. “It is a big achievement because he was also an explosive expert of Al-Qaeda,” Sherpao said.
Security officials said the insurgent was killed near Khar, the main town in the Bajaur tribal district. They stopped Al-Suri at a checkpoint in the rugged and largely lawless area because he was not a local person.
“They called him down for a body search and questioning. He came out of the vehicle then all of a sudden started firing at the paramilitary forces. They returned fire,” one official said. One source said Al-Suri may have killed himself to avoid capture.
The security official said Al-Suri was also involved in Al-Qaeda’s financial matters.
