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Pakistani Taliban denies Zawahri dead or hurt

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-08-02 19:58

ISLAMABAD - A Pakistani Taliban spokesman denied on Saturday a US media report that al Qaeda number two, Ayman al Zawahri, might have been killed or wounded in a US missile strike on the Afghan border last Monday.

Al Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri speaks in a grab from a video released September 20, 2007. [Agencies]

"Zawahri has been killed by them several times. But once again this claim is wrong. This is baseless," Maulvi Omar told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.

CBS News based its report on a copy of an intercepted letter purportedly written by the leader of Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud requesting a doctor to treat the wounded Zawahri. The letter was written on Tuesday, a day after a US missile strike killed an al Qaeda bomb expert in Pakistan's South Waziristan.