Afghan Al Qeada Leader Killed

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Abu Saeed al-Masri follows in the footsteps of Abu Khabab al-Masri an Al Qaeda biological weapons expert who assumed ambient temperature last month.
al-Masri was one of the senior leaders of Al Qaeda in the Afghan region and was killed by Pakistani forces operating in the border area.
al-Masri was believed to be the primary person responsible for managing the financial operations of AlQaeda in Afghanistan and is likely to leave a large vacancy in operations which will be difficult to fill.

A quote from Fox News by Mahmood Shah:

A former security chief of Pakistan's northwestern ethnic Pastun tribal areas, told Reuters that the death of al-Masri, aka. Yazid, would have an impact on insurgencies in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"It's one more important person gone. It will have an impact," Mahmood Shah told Reuters.

"Al Qaeda is the main machine behind the insurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Taliban, the Chechens and the Uzbeks, are used as foot soldiers as cannon fodder but the actual machine is Al Qaeda."

The issue of leadership positions being lost in the region is bound to have an impact on the overall operations of Al Qaeda and its ability to foment trouble for the Coalition forces who are fighting both the Taliban and AlQaeda. The outcome of the most recent loss of leadership may be most keenly felt in the ability of AlQaeda to maintain the financing arrangements which have been established. AlQaeda may find the actions of Jihad much more difficult to carry out without the access to Arab money sources which have fueled the conflict from the beginning.

Abu Saeed al-Masri has been noted as the number 3 man in AlQaeda who has been lost since 2001. Apparently the number 3 spot is not a healthy place to be in. Since last Wednesday almost 160 people in the Al Qaeda and Taliban organizations have been killed in the fighting at the Pakistan Afghanistan border region.

Increasingly, civilians in the region are being caught in the battles and the results have been brutally difficult.

According to a Reuters story

In the latest violence in northwest Pakistan, 13 people were killed on Tuesday in a bomb attack on an air force bus in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

Militants based on the Afghan border have been accused of a series of attacks on security forces over the past year.

Provincial police chief Malik Naveed Khan said five of the dead were air force personnel and eight were civilians.

In the latest violence in Bajaur, six civilians trying to flee from the area were killed in cross-fire, a government official said.

"Their vehicle was caught in an exchange of fire that erupted this morning," said the official based in the region, who declined to be identified.

The inclusion of civilians in the battles is not likely to win the hearts of the area residents, and may make the long term goals of AlQaeda even more difficult to attain.