Senior Al-Qaeda Suspect Killed

(Khar, Pakistan) There's strong indication that a close associate of Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed yesterday in a gunfight in northwestern Pakistan. As a reminder, Zawahiri is second in command of al-Qaeda after Osama bin Laden.

From Aljazeera.net:

The suspect, thought to be Saudi-born Abu Marwan al-Suri, was killed on Thursday close to the Afghan border.

Major-General Shaukat Sultan, the Pakistan army spokesman, said al-Suri was in a vehicle on the outskirts of Khar, a town near the Bajur tribal region.

Al-Suri opened fire when he was asked to stop his vehicle at a roadblock. He killed a Pakistani security official and wounded two others before he himself was killed.

His body has been transported to a hospital in the city of Peshawar for identification.

Seized from al-Suri's vehicle were a video camera, a laptop computer, hand grenades and some documents. However, according to a Pakistani intelligence officer, al-Suri is probably not the man's real name. Nonetheless, since al-Suri was so closely associated with al-Qaeda leadership, I tend toward the thought that his elimination means the perimeter around bin Laden is tightening.

See also In The Bullpen and The Jawa Report.