U.S. Says Qaeda Militants Killed in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan — American military officials said on Tuesday that two militants killed in eastern Kunar Province on Sunday belonged to Al Qaeda.

One of the militants was Sakhr al-Taifi, according to a statement from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force which added that he was Al Qaeda’s second-ranking leader in Afghanistan.

However, there are no known published references to Mr. Taifi, and nobody by that name (or by two pseudonyms given by the military, Mushtaq and Nasim) appears on the official United Nations blacklist of Al Qaeda terrorists, which has several hundred names.

NATO’s statement said the two were killed in a precision airstrike after they were identified.

A spokesman for ISAF’s Joint Command, Capt. Justin Brockhoff, said that Mr. al-Taifi had connections with Taliban leaders “and exercised influence on them,” as well as controlling “multiple Al Qaeda terrorists.” He said the military’s information came from “information gathered through combined intelligence gathering.”

The second Al Qaeda figure killed was not identified by the military.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, a suicide bomber in eastern Nangarhar Province detonated his explosives prematurely while apparently en route to the district governor’s office in Momand District on Tuesday, according to the governor, Shakrullah Durani.

Mr. Durani said two people were killed and three severely wounded, all of them passengers in the bomber’s car. He said the bomber had apparently offered them rides in an attempt to disguise his attack.

TheNewYorkTimes