In what may be one of the toughest battles against al-Qaeda after the U.S. movement against the terrorist association began, thought the team's No. 3, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, to be dead, killed by a U.S. Predator buzz to find a U.S. official Monday .
The official, who spoke on condition of secrecy, said word was "spreading in extreme circles" of his death in Pakistan's tribal areas over the past two weeks.
There were several postings on Islamist websites in the al-Qaeda's so-called General Command, announced his death, according to both Intel Center and SITE Intelligence Group.SITE said Monday also announced that his wife, three of his daughters, his grandchildren and other men, women and children were killed.
A website linked to al-Qaida also documented his death.
Yazid, who nom de guerre was Sheikh Saeed al-Masri, had a hand in al Qaeda training, logistics and financing for the rehabilitated Taliban insurgency.
U.S. reports described him as al-Qaida's "number three", a title often bestowed murdered Bin Laden employee, although some analysts said it strength not just in this case.
There is little doubt that Yazid's death, if confirmed, marks the passing a senior Arab militant on long knowledge and unusually close ties to both bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
In his mid-50 were Yazid one of the founders of al-Qaida in late 1980 and followed bin Laden to Sudan before recurring to Afghanistan with him in the mid-1990s.
He urbanized a close relationship with the Taliban, learn to speak Pashto and absorb their culture, which gave him the respect warmer than many other Arab fighters from local Taliban found conceited.
Specialized in logistics and finance, since 2001, Yazid was the main link between al-Qaida, which is based in Pakistan's tribal areas, Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, according to Michael Scheuer, former head of CIA cell hunting bin weighed down.
They put him in charge of Afghanistan, so that al-Qaida can serve as a support tool rebellion. He would have ensured that there was an adequate education, flow of weapons and financing. "
Yazid was mistakenly reported killed by Pakistani officials after a drone strike in August 2008.But this time, U.S. officials expressed more confidence, citing talk of Islamist networks and credit of his death in an al-Qaeda website.
Some militant experts, however, disputed the description of Yazid as al-Qaida's "number three", says the title may more properly belong to Abu Yahya al-Libi, a Libyan militant who runaway from a high security U.S. military prison in Afghanistan in 2005.
Although U.S. officials are eager to highlight his apparent death as a blow against al-Qaida and other successes in the contentious drone campaign, it remains unclear what effect it will have.
Several other senior al Qaeda figures were killed in drone attack in recent years, and in each case a successor quickly emerged. With his death may mark, in fact, the adoption of al-Qaida torch from one generation of militants for a second.
Scheuer, a prominent critic of U.S. foreign policy, said drones could not recompense for lack of a broader, policy-based approach against al-Qaida defuse Muslim appeals over the world, counting Israel-Palestine conflict.
"All of this is annulled by what the Israelis did with that relief convoys," says Scheuer. "Whatever we got from killing Sheikh Yazid what the Israelis did would only lead to more hostility to the U.S... But Americans have a very difficult time between the dots. "
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