Qaeda websites suggest Libi alive, promise new video

The messages posted by Ansar and Alfidaa websites suggested that Libi remains alive. PHOTO: AFP

DUBAI: Two websites linked to al Qaeda announced on Sunday that they will air a new video featuring the militant network’s deputy leader Abu Yahya al-Libi, whom Washington claimed last week to have killed.

The messages posted by Ansar and Alfidaa websites suggested that Libi remains alive.

“Soon, a video message by Sheikh Abu Yahya al-Libi, may Allah protect him,” read the message posted by al Qaeda’s Sahab media arm on both sites, one of which was put online on around 1500 GMT on Sunday.

The United States said Tuesday that al Qaeda’s number two was killed in a drone strike, in the most weighty blow to the organisation since the killing of its founder Osama bin Laden.

Pakistani authorities spoke of a pre-dawn CIA drone strike on Monday on a compound in North Waziristan, near the Afghan border while US officials did not disclose details of the attack.

A trusted lieutenant of bin Laden, Libi appeared in countless al Qaeda videos and was considered the chief architect of its global propaganda machine.