Miram Shah, Pakistan
A U.S. missile last week took out Egyptian-born Hamza Rabia, one of al Qaida’s top commanders, who was hiding in a Pakistani village near the Afghan border. Local media gave conflicting reports about the cause of the explosion that killed Rabia, but Pakistani intelligence sources told The Washington Post that it was a missile fired from an unmanned U.S. drone. Rabia was believed to be al Qaida’s current No. 3 man and a planner of large-scale terrorist attacks. “It’s a success story,” said al Qaida specialist Magnus Ranstorp of the Swedish National Defense College. “But al Qaida has turned into a multi-headed hydra: You chop off one head and another head takes its place.”
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