Al Qaeda leader missed dinner that prompted US strike

Details have emerged of how the deputy leader of Al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri, may have only survived an American air strike in Pakistan because he didn't turn up to a dinner he was expected at.

Even as the reports emerged, thousands of Pakistanis took part in angry street protests at the air strike, in which around 18 civilians are believed to have died, including six children.

In a speech broadcast on national television, President Pervez Musharraf called on Pakistanis to stop sheltering Al Qaeda leaders and other militants for the good of the country.

The air strike in Damadola village in the Bajaur tribal agency was triggered by intelligence that Dr Zawahiri had been invited to a dinner there to celebrate the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, Pakistani sources said yesterday.

"He was invited for the dinner, but we have no evidence that he was present," a senior intelligence official told the Reuters news agency.

The Al-Arabiya television news network said yesterday it had received reliable information the Al Qaeda number two was still alive.

But American sources insisted the attack had been based on "very good" intelligence, and said it was too early to be sure Dr Zawahiri had survived, and the remains of the dead would have to be examined.

Three houses, including the one in which the dinner party was being held, were destroyed by missiles fired from an unmanned American Predator drone.

The US has not commented officially on the air strike, but it is believed it was a CIA operation.

The CIA is known to operate its own Predator drones, but their operations are classified and it rarely comments on them.

Local officials say that 18 civilians were killed in the air strike, but Pakistani intelligence sources were quoted as saying the actual death toll was higher and included at least 11 militants - seven of Arab origin, and four Pakistanis.

A report in the New York Times said that the bodies of the seven Arabs were taken away by a local cleric who had been at the dinner but left before the air strike, Maulavi Liaqat.

The bodies of the four Pakistani militants were taken by a second cleric, Maulavi Atta Mohammed.

Dawn newspaper reported both clerics are wanted in Pakistan for harbouring militants.

If Dr Zawahiri were killed it would be the biggest success the US has enjoyed in its hunt for Al Qaeda.

Regarded as in many ways Osama bin Laden's mentor, Dr Zawahiri is at the heart of the Al Qaeda leadership and the US has a $25m bounty on his head.

Recently he has begun to take an even more prominent role, emerging as the public face of Al Qaeda and issuing his own video and audio messages, while nothing has been heard from bin Laden in more than a year - leading to speculation Dr Zawahiri may have taken over as operational leader.

One of Dr Zawahiri's wives is a member of the Mohmand tribe of Pahstuns who are the majority population in Damadola village, and it would be natural for him to visit her to celebrate Eid.

Bajaur lies along the border with Afghanistan that has long been considered a possible hiding place for bin Laden and Dr Zawahiri.

It is one of the tribal agencies, a leftover from British colonial rule where tribal law applies and Pakistani security forces rarely venture.

It borders Konar province in Afghanistan, one of the areas where the resurgent Taleban are at their strongest.

In a speech to local tribesmen broadcast on national television yesterday, President Musharraf said: "If we harbour foreign terrorists, those who carry out bomb blasts throughout the world, then remember that our future is not good.

People should not side with foreign militants.

They should tell us about them so we take action against them."Gen Musharraf is one of the US' closest allies in the "war on terror", but protests which saw 10,000 people on the streets of Karachi and calls for him to resign yesterday show how much popular opposition there is to his support for the US.

Pakistan does not allow US troops to operate on its soil, and officially condemned the air strike.

But its has stopped short of directly blaming the US.

- INDEPENDENT