Osama bin Laden’s son Sa’ad was probably killed by a US missile strike in Pakistan earlier this year, US National Public Radio has reported, citing US intelligence officials.
Sa’ad bin Laden, a prominent figure in the murky relationship between Iran and al-Qaeda, was believed to have gone to Pakistan after spending a number of years under house arrest in Iran, US intelligence officials said in January.
A missile fired from a US drone aircraft is believed to have killed him sometime this year, NPR cited an unnamed US counter-terrorism official as saying on its Web site.
US intelligence agencies were “80 to 85 percent” certain Sa’ad bin Laden was dead, the official said, adding that he was not important enough to be targeted himself but was “in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
It was not clear whether Sa’ad bin Laden was near his father when he died, NPR said.
The official described him as being active in al-Qaeda, but not a major player. He was thought to be in his late 20s.
US forces have stepped up their drone attacks in Pakistan since last September, targeting Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked militants in areas bordering Afghanistan.
The US has carried out close to 50 such air strikes since the beginning of last year, killing about 470 people, including many foreign militants, a tally of reports from Pakistani intelligence, district government officials and residents shows.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
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Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
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