Bin Laden deputy 'killed by US'

Osama bin Laden's key deputy and chosen successor has been killed in Kabul, it was claimed this afternoon.

Mohammed Atef, military commander of the al Qaeda terror network, is reported to have died in what the Pentagon described as a targeted strike by US bombers. The Pentagon said there were " credible reports" that Atef had died.

Atef, a 6ft 5in former Egyptian policeman, was believed to have been involved in the planning of the 11 September terrorist attacks. There was a $5 million reward for his capture.

A US official said: "This is a devastating blow to the al Qaeda organisation. This guy was Bin Laden's military specialist since the early Nineties, widely thought to be Bin Laden's successor in the event of his death." Atef organised al Qaeda networks in East Africa and was believed to have played an important role in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. Several other al Qaeda members died in the strike in the Afghan capital. For more than a decade Atef has been a loyal Bin Laden follower and earlier this year his daughter married Bin Laden's son.

According to the CIA, he took "primary responsibility" for training new members at Afghanistan camps.

Like his master, Atef has been contemptuous of the USA, its leaders and their military power, telling an Arab journalist in 1999: "They are only human beings whose power has been exaggerated because of their huge media and the control the exert over the world's media."

Evidence presented during the trial of the African embassy bombers showed how Atef kept in touch via satellite phone with the conspirators. And part of the dossier of evidence linking Bin Laden to the 11 September atrocities is understood to include interceptions of phone calls and bank transfers linked to Atef.

The CIA was referring to Atef when it said: "We have learned that one of Bin Laden's closest and most senior associates was responsible for the detailed planning of the attacks."

Meanwhile Pakistan this afternoon dismissed as " preposterous and mischievous" an Iranian radio report that Bin Laden had already fled from Afghanistan to Pakistan.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said US special forces were now active in souther n Afghanistan, shooting Taliban and al Qaeda forces who did not surrender.

"They are killing Taliban that won't surrender and al Qaeda that are trying to move from one place to another," Rumsfeld told reporters as he flew from Washington to a naval training station near Chicago.

The focus of the US campaign in Afghanistan has shifted more towards tracking down Bin Laden and al Qaeda leaders, who are thought to be hiding in the south where the Taliban still retains some control.

Pentagon officials have said that some senior Taliban and al Qaeda leaders have been killed in recent days, but until now have offered no names.

"We are tightening the noose," said General Tommy Franks, commander of the US forces in the region.

Last month Atef was reported saying: "America will not realise its miscalculations until its soldiers are dragged into Afghanistan,"

The Government says Atef travelled to Somalia several times in 1992 and 1993 to organise violence against US and UN t roops then stationed there. On each occasion he reported back to bin Laden, who was based at the time in Khartoum, Sudan.

Atef, also known as Sobhi al-Sitta, was the commander of the military wing of the "International Front for Fighting Jews and Crusades" which was formed by the 1998 merger of bin Laden's al-Qaeda group with Islamic Jihad of Egypt.

The military wing, known as the Islamic Army for the Liberation of Holy Sites, claimed responsibility for the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Africa.