U.S. top military official hails killing of al-Qaida commander

The U.S. military officer hailed on Friday the killing of a top al-Qaida commander as an important moment in the anti-terror war.

"The strike was a very important one; it was a very lethal one," Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Pentagon news conference.

He referred to the attack that killed Abu Laith al-Libi, 41, was a key link between Taliban and al-Qaida and ranked as one of the United States military's 12 most-wanted men.

However, Mullen did not provide details or explicitly say whether al-Libi was killed in a U.S. missile strike inside Pakistan.

"While this particular strike was very successful, and we were very pleased with the outcome, there is still a great deal more work to do," he said.

A Libyan descent, the No. 3 in the al-Qaida and fourth in the world, was believed to have been behind the February 2007 bombing at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan while Vice President Dick Cheney was visiting the country.

According to CNN report, before joining al-Qaida, al-Libi was a leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which eventually merged with al-Qaida and was responsible for planning attacks throughout North Africa and the Middle East.

Mullen described al-Libi "a key figure, clearly, for al-Qaida," but he said that the U.S. government remains "concerned about the safe havens" in the area of western Pakistan that borders Afghanistan.

CNN said on Thursday that if al-Libi died in Pakistan, it was unlikely that he was killed by U.S. ground troops that do not operate inside the Pakistani border.

However, the possibility remains that he was killed by a missile fired from a drone operated by the Central Investigation Agency and other U.S. government agencies, the report added.

(Xinhua)