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US claims to have killed close Laden aide

Muhammad Atef, head of Al Qaeda's military wing and third in the terrorist organisation's hierarchy after Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri, is believed to have been killed in an American air strike near Kabul, an official of the United States said on Friday.

The official said an air strike near Kabul on Thursday might have killed the former Egyptian policeman.

Atef is believed to have trained the terrorists responsible for the September 11 attacks on the Pentagon and New York as also the attacks on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and on the destroyer USS Cole in 2000.

Born in 1958, Atef was a member of the radical Egyptian group Al-Jihad. He took part in the war in Afghanistan against Soviet occupation from 1979-89 and was with Laden when the latter lived in Sudan. He is wanted in Egypt and the United States. His daughter is married to a son of Laden.

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