NATO troops in Afghanistan said on Tuesday they had killed a Saudi described as an “Al Qaeda senior leader” who was their number two most-wanted insurgent in the country. The US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said Abu Hafs al-Najdi, also known as Abdul Ghani, was killed in an air strike in Kunar province, eastern Afghanistan, on April 13.
ISAF said he was responsible for coordinating “numerous high-profile attacks” and that they had been hunting him for four years. But spokesman Major Michael Johnson told AFP he could not give details on the attacks for “safety and security reasons” and could not say who was number one on the most wanted list because of legal issues.
The Saudi Interior Ministry website lists a man named Saleh Nayef Eid al-Makhlafi, with the nicknames Abu Hafs, Abu Hafs al-Najdi and Abdul Ghani, as one of its 85 most-wanted. ISAF said he operated primarily from Kunar, which borders Pakistan and is the scene of some of the country’s heaviest fighting, and travelled frequently between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where militant networks have rear bases.
It accused him of directing Al Qaeda operations in the province, including “recruiting, training and employing fighters”, obtaining weapons, organising Al Qaeda finances, and planning attacks against Afghan and NATO forces. He was blamed for directing a suicide attack which killed a pro-Kabul tribal elder in Kunar and nine other people on the morning of his death, plus other unspecified attacks on security forces and officials.
Johnson said it had taken time to confirm the insurgent’s identity, hence the delay between his death and its announcement.