WASHINGTON (AP) - Al-Qaida announced Monday that its No. 3 official, Mustafa al-Yazid, had been killed along with members of his family - perhaps one of the most severe blows to the terror movement since the U.S. campaign against al-Qaida began. A U.S. official said al-Yazid was believed to have died in a U.S. missile strike.
A statement posted on an al-Qaida website said al-Yazid, which it described as the organization's top commander in Afghanistan, was killed along with his wife, three daughters, a grandchild and other men, women and children but did not say how or where.
The statement did not give an exact date for al-Yazid's death, but it was dated by the Islamic calendar month of "Jemadi al-Akhar," which falls in May.
A U.S. official in Washington said word was "spreading in extremist circles" of his death in Pakistan's tribal areas in the past two weeks.
His death would be a major blow to al-Qaida, which in December "lost both its internal and external operations chiefs," the official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.
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