Aug. 5, 2009
A U.S. strike kills Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mahsud in South Waziristan, a volatile tribal area of Pakistan along the Afghan border that the Taliban has used as a base for years.
(Associated Press)
March 8, 2010
Hussein Yemeni, an Al Qaeda bomb expert and trainer, is killed in Pakistan by a U.S. drone strike.
May 10, 2010
A U.S. drone attack kills Sheik Said Masri, Al Qaeda’s No. 3 leader, in Pakistan.
Sept. 25, 2010
An airstrike in eastern Afghanistan kills Abdallah Umar Qurayshi, who had led Al Qaeda-affiliated Arab fighters operating in two eastern provinces, and Abu Atta Kuwaiti, an explosives expert.
May 2, 2011
Osama bin Laden, leader of Al Qaeda, is killed during a Navy SEALs raid at a compound inside Pakistan.
(Associated Press)
June 3, 2011
Ilyas Kashmiri, described by U.S. officials as a key Al Qaeda planner and trainer, is killed by a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan.
Aug. 22, 2011
Al Qaeda's second in command, Atiyah Abdul Rahman, is killed in a drone attack in Pakistan.
(National Counterterrorism Center)
Sept. 30, 2011
Amerian-born Muslim cleric, Anwar Awlaki, accused of inspiring and plotting terrorist attacks on Americans, is killed by a missile fired from a drone aircraft operated by the CIA.
(Muhammad ud-Deen/Associated Press)
Oct. 14, 2011
Abdul-Rahman Awlaki, the son of Anwar Awlaki, and Ibrahim Banna, whom officials described as the media chief of the Al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen, are killed by a U.S. military drone strike.
May 29, 2012
U.S.-led coalition troops say they've killed Sakhr al-Taifi, Al Qaeda's second-in-command in Afghanistan, in an airstrike in the country's eastern province of Kunar. Sakhr al-Taifi, a Saudi national, and one other unnamed Al Qaeda militant were killed in the airstrike, NATO says.
June 4, 2012
Al Qaeda’s second-in-command, Abu Yahya al-Libi, is killed in a U.S. drone missile strike on Hesokhel, a small village in North Waziristan near the Afghan border. North Waziristan has long been a stronghold for Al Qaeda, the Taliban, the Haqqani network and other militant groups. Al-Libi's death was confirmed by a U.S. official on Tuesday, June 5.
A 2007 image purportedly shows Al Qaeda militant Abu Yahya al-Libi, who was targeted in a U.S. drone missile strike.
(IntelCenter / Associated Press)
Jan. 3, 2013
A U.S. drone strike in northwest Pakistan kills a top Taliban commander responsible for engineering attacks on U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. The death of Pakistani Taliban commander Maulvi Nazir deals a significant blow to insurgent ranks that use Pakistan's rugged tribal regions along the border with Afghanistan as sanctuary from which to launch assaults on Western troops battling Afghan Taliban fighters.
Maulvi Nazir meets with associates in South Waziristan in April 2007.
(Ishtiaq Mahsud / Associated Press)
