WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Faruq al-Qatani, one of al-Qaeda’s top operatives, was killed by a US airstrike in Afghanistan on October 23, US Department of Defense spokesman Peter Cook confirmed in a news release.
"We can now confirm that the precision strike conducted by the US military on Oct. 23 in Kunar, Afghanistan, resulted in the death of senior al-Qaeda leader Faruq al-Qatani," Cook stated in the release on Friday.
Al-Qatani was al-Qaeda's commander for eastern Afghanistan and one of the terror group's senior plotters of attacks against the United States, the release stated.
Bilal al-Utabi, another al-Qaeda leader in Afghanistan, was also targeted in a separate strike, but the Defense Department is still assessing the results of the strike, the release added.
