Al Qaeda's "military brain," Ilyas Kashmiri, was killed in a drone strike Friday night in Pakistan

The man described by counterterrorism officials as al Qaeda's "military brain," Ilyas Kashmiri, was killed in a drone strike Friday night in Pakistan, a spokesman for his group, the jihadist Harakat-ul-Jihad-Islami, said.

Pakistani and U.S. officials, however, said they have not confirmed Kashmiri's death.

Kashmiri was killed, along with some aides, in a strike at 11:15 p.m., spokesman Abu Hanzla Kashar said.

"The oppressor U.S. is our only target and, God willing, we will take revenge on the U.S. soon with full force," he said.

A senior Pakistani military official said that in all, nine were killed by the drone strike. The official reiterated that they had not confirmed Kashmiri's demise.

Kashmiri, who was known to operate in North Waziristan, had moved to South Waziristan and was seen at the site of the attack on Friday, the official said.

If confirmed, his death would be the first major kill or capture since Osama Bin Laden, and the highest profile drone target since Beitullah Mehsud in 2009.

It could also be seen as an embarrassment for Pakistanis, who have twice in just over one month, had a major al Qaeda figure killed on their territory without their participation.

U.S. drones now operate entirely autonomously in Pakistan. Whereas before the United States cooperated with Pakistan and used their intelligence, today, the Americans have an intelligence network that allows them to go after terrorists unilaterally.

Kashmiri, a veteran jihadist, is considered one of the most dangerous men in the world by counterterrorism officials on three continents.

He was commander of "Brigade 313" of Harakat-ul-Jihad-Islami, which has formed a close relationship with al Qaeda.

Kashmiri is also said to have ties with David Coleman Headley, the U.S. citizen who confessed to helping scout

targets for the Mumbai attack in November 2008. After his arrest, Headley said he had twice met Kashmiri.

During questioning by India's National Intelligence Agency, which was given access to him in Chicago, Illinois, in June 2010, Headley said he'd been taken to Pakistan's tribal territories to meet Kashmiri early in 2009.

A copy of the interrogation obtained by CNN reveals that Kashmiri sent Headley on another trip to survey targets in India. One place he said he videotaped was a bakery that was later attacked in Pune in February 2010.

Kashmiri in his early years fought the Indians in the disputed territory of Kashmir and the Russians in Afghanistan, where he lost an eye.

He famously escaped from an Indian jail and went to fight with a unit of Pakistan's special forces. Eventually, he fell out with his sponsors in the Pakistani military, and moved his operations to North Waziristan.

At one point, he was arrested in connection with an attempt to assassinate Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, in 2003. For reasons unknown, Kashmiri was released a short time later.

Al Qaeda sends last audio message of Bin Laden

A voice from beyond the grave - an audio recording from the former al Qaeda leader has been posted on Islamist websites.
The posthumously released message includes Osama bin Laden praising the revolutions sweeping the Arab world and calling on his followers to bring down the tyrants.
During the current Arab uprisings Islamists have been conspicuous by their absence which have been largely led by ordinary citizens.
Bi Laden was killed on May 2 in a US raid on his compound in Pakistan

Egyptian Saif al-Adel appointed acting leader of al Qaeda

An Egyptian who was once a Special Forces officer has been appointed "caretaker" leader of al Qaeda in the wake of Osama bin Laden's death, according to a source with detailed knowledge of the group's inner workings.

Al Qaeda's interim leader is Saif al-Adel, who has long played a prominent role in the group, according to Noman Benotman. Benotman has known the al Qaeda leadership for more than two decades. He was once a leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a militant organization that used to be aligned with al Qaeda, but in recent years renounced al Qaeda's ideology.

Benotman told CNN that based on his personal communications with militants and discussions on jihadist forums, al-Adel had been appointed interim chief of al Qaeda because the global jihadist community had grown restive in recent days about the lack of a formal announcement appointing a successor to bin Laden.

However, he said, the choice of an Egyptian may not sit well with some Saudi and Yemeni members of al Qaeda, who believe bin Laden's successor should come from the Arabian Peninsula, a region that is holy to all Muslims. Bin Laden was from a wealthy Saudi family.

The presumed successor to bin Laden is his long-time deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is also Egyptian. Benotman, who has long been a reliable source of information about al Qaeda, said the temporary appointment of al-Adel may be a way for the leadership to gauge reaction to the appointment of someone from beyond the Arabian Peninsula as the group's leader.

Al-Adel fought the Soviets in Afghanistan during the 1980s. After the fall of the Taliban in the winner of 2001 he fled to Iran. According to senior Saudi counterterrorism officials, from there al-Adel authorized al Qaeda's branch in Saudi Arabia to begin a campaign of terrorist attacks in the Saudi kingdom that began in Riyadh in May 2003, a campaign that killed scores.

Some reports in the past year have suggested that al-Adel had left Iran for Pakistan.

One of the key issues that al-Adel has to reckon with now is the fallout from the large quantities of sensitive information that was recovered by U.S. forces at the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where bin Laden was shot on May 2. That information is likely to prove damaging to al Qaeda operations.

The appointment of an interim leader allows al Qaeda to begin the process of collecting allegiance, or baya, from al-Qaeda affiliates such as the Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the North Africa-based al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

Baya was a religious oath of allegiance to bin Laden rather than to the organization itself, in the same way that Nazi Party members swore an oath of fealty to Hitler rather than to Nazism. That baya must now be transferred to whomever the new leader of al Qaeda is going to be, which is likely to be al-Zawahiri, given his long role as bin Laden's deputy.

However, there is scant evidence that al-Zawahiri has the charisma of bin Laden, nor that he commands the respect bordering on love that was accorded to bin Laden by members of al Qaeda.

Now that bin Laden is dead there is a real opportunity for the Taliban to disassociate itself from al Qaeda, as it was bin Laden who, sometime before the 9/11 attacks, swore an oath of allegiance to Taliban leader Mullah Omar as the Amir al-Mu'minin, the Commander of the Faithful, a rarely invoked religious title that dates from around the time of the Prophet Mohammed.

Mullah Omar could now take the position that the new leader of al Qaeda does not need to swear an oath of allegiance to Omar as Commander of the Faithful.

Such a move would satisfy a key condition for peace talks with the U.S. and Afghan governments: that the Taliban reject al Qaeda, something that they have so far not done.