police murder, cia murder, whats the difference Original Article Slain al-Qaida man under U.S. watch Dana Priest Washington Post May. 15, 2005 12:00 AM WASHINGTON - An al-Qaida figure killed this month by a missile from a CIA-operated unmanned aerial drone had been under surveillance for more than a week by U.S. intelligence and military personnel working along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, a U.S. official and two counterterrorism experts said Saturday. The U.S. team was hoping Haitham al-Yemeni would lead them to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, said two counterterrorism experts, both former senior U.S. intelligence officials with knowledge of events surrounding the attack. But after Pakistani authorities early this month captured another al-Qaida leader, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, CIA officials became concerned that Yemeni would go into hiding and decided to try to kill him instead, the counterterrrorism experts said. "We had been working hard to see what he would do," said one expert, referring to Yemeni. Yemeni's importance in the al-Qaida organization could not be learned Saturday. He is not listed by that name in either the FBI or Pakistani "Most Wanted" lists, but the active surveillance of him suggests his importance. The CIA declined to comment. Pakistan's information minister denied that any such incident, which was first reported by ABC News, even happened. "No such incident took place near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border," Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said Saturday. The sources said the Predator drone, operated from a secret base hundreds of miles from the target, located and fired on Yemeni on May 7 in Toorikhel, Pakistan, a suburb of Mirali in the province of North Waziristan. In an article dated May 8, the Dawn newspaper in Pakistan, whose correspondents operate in the tribal areas where the hunt for bin Laden has been most intense, reported that two people had been killed Saturday night by a car bomb. The newspaper, quoting Pakistani officials, said the car was completely destroyed and one of the victims mutilated beyond recognition. It identified the second victim as Samiullah Khan. The CIA and U.S. military Special Operations forces have been operating inside Pakistan for more than two years with the knowledge of Pakistani authorities. But the U.S. presence is controversial with the largely Muslim Pakistani public, which is generally sympathetic to bin Laden and al-Qaida. For that reason, Pakistani officials routinely play down U.S.-Pakistani cooperation. The Predator and other unmanned aerial vehicles have become some of the most successful new weapons for killing small groups of people or individuals in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Washington Post reported in February that the administration also has been flying surveillance drones over Iran for nearly a year to gather intelligence on the country's nuclear weapons program and air defenses.