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Islamabad: Pakistan's Taliban movement on Saturday denied a US television report that Al Qaida's deputy leader Ayman Al Zawahiri may have been wounded or killed in a missile strike this week.
The Pakistani military said it had no information on the report by CBS, which said it had obtained an intercepted letter from a Taliban commander urgently requesting a doctor to treat the Egyptian.
"This is totally baseless. The claim is rubbish, there is no truth in this," Maulvi Omar, a spokesman for Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (Pakistan Taliban Movement), said.
"Baitullah did not write any letter to anybody. He never asked for any help or assistance," said Omar, referring to Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud, who has been linked by Pakistani and US officials to Al Qaida.
Pakistani officials have previously said that a July 28 missile strike in the South Waziristan tribal area killed Al Qaida's top chemical and biological weapons expert, Midhat Mursi Al Sayid Umar.
CBS said it appeared Zawahiri had also been targeted in the attack.
No information
"There is no evidence or information in this regard. We have no reliable information," chief Pakistani military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said.
A senior military official based in northwestern Pakistan said he was "investigating the authenticity" of the report and added that authorities were trying to obtain Mehsud's alleged letter.
An intelligence official based in South Waziristan said they had heard rumours about Zawahiri being targeted a few days ago "and we checked it but we have not been able to confirm it."
CBS said the letter from Mehsud dated July 29 carried his seal and signature, refers to Zawahiri by name and says the Egyptian is in "severe pain" and his "injuries are infected."
Statement expected
A US-based terrorism monitoring group, IntelCentre, said on Friday that it "is aware of and has been monitoring for a few days now reports that Al Qaida's Ayman Al Zawahiri has been killed or severely injured in the strike."
It said that if Zawahiri was dead, Al Qaida would be expected to release the news about him "with a fair amount of speed either in a video and/or written statement."
"Zawahiri has been killed by them several times. But once again this claim is wrong. This is baseless," Maulvi Omar said.
The whereabouts of Zawahiri and Al Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden have not been known to their enemies since US-led forces waged a campaign to hunt them down in Afghanistan following the Al Qaida attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.
Both are believed to hiding somewhere in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"Ayman Al Zawahiri was not present there. Ayman Al Zawahiri is neither present in Waziristan nor in Bajaur," Omar said, referring to another Pakistani tribal region known as a sanctuary for Al Qaida militants.
The Pakistan military also said on Saturday it had no information about the US media report that Al Zawahiri, might have been critically wounded or possibly killed by a missile attack.
An Al Qaida chemical and biological weapons expert, Abu Khabab Al Masri, was killed on Monday along with five other people in a suspected US missile strike in Pakistan's South Waziristan region on the Afghan border.
American television network CBS News said it had obtained a copy of an intercepted letter, dated a day after the attack, purportedly from a Pakistani Taliban commander urgently requesting a doctor to treat Zawahiri.
The letter, which CBS said was reportedly written by Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, referred to Zawahiri by name and said he was in "severe pain" and his "injuries are infected."
Pakistani military said it could not confirm the report.
A senior Pakistani intelligence officer, however, rejected suggestions that Zawahiri was present when Al Masri was killed.
He said Al Masri's wife and children had been wounded in the missile strike and were taken for treatment to Wana, the main town in South Waziristan.
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