US airstrike misses al-Zawahiri

Islamabad: Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in the al-Qaeda terrorist network, was not in a remote Pakistani village targeted by a CIA airstrike, according to news reports.

Senior Pakistani officials said earlier reports that al-Zawahiri may have been killed in Friday's attack in the village of Damadola, near the Afghan border were incorrect.

"Their information was wrong, and our investigations conclude that they acted on a false information," a senior intelligence official told The Associated Press on Saturday.

AP said the official had direct knowledge of the investigations into the airstike that killed 18 people.

Reuters also quoted a senior Pakistani official as saying: "Al-Zawahri was not there at the time of the attack."

The Pakistans government was expected to issue a statement later on Saturday.

Both the Pentagon and the White House declined to comment on initial reports of the airstrike on Friday.

Friday morning's strike killed eight men, five women and five children, Pakistani intelligence sources said.

"We are conducting tests to identify the bodies," one intelligence official said.

Hundreds of residents took part Saturday in protesting the attack.

The strike came a week after the Arabic language news network Al-Jazeera aired a new videotape with a message from al-Zawahiri, in which he called on US President George W Bush to admit defeat in Iraq.

US authorities believe al-Zawahiri, 54, a doctor from a prominent Egyptian family, helped mastermind the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

He has also been indicted in the United States for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

The US government has put up a $25 million reward for information leading to his capture.

While bin Laden himself hasn't been heard from since October 2004, last week's videotape was the fifth message from al-Zawahiri released over the past year, including several claiming responsibility for the July attacks on London's transit system.

Considered the intellectual and ideological driving force behind al Qaeda, al-Zawahiri has been associated with bin Laden since at least 1987, when they first met in Pakistan. He is also believed to act as bin Laden's personal physician.

In 1998, al-Zawahiri merged his own Islamic militant group, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, into bin Laden's organization.

Three months after the 9/11 attacks, US forces attacked al-Zawahiri's residence in Afghanistan, killing his wife and children.

In March 2004, Pakistani troops launched an assault on an area in Waziristan province where intelligence indicated al-Zawahiri was hiding, but he was not captured.

Last month, Pakistani officials confirmed the death of a top al Qaeda official, Abu Hamza Rabia, who was killed in an explosion December 1 north of the border town of Miram Shah (Full story).

But witnesses gave conflicting accounts of how he died. Villagers said he was killed in a missile strike, while Pakistan offficials said he died while working with explosives.

Egyptian-born Rabia was described as al Qaeda's operations chief and No. 3 man.