A top Al-Qaeda leader, Adnan Al-Shukri Juma, has been killed in a Pakistan army raid in the South Waziristan tribal region, the Pakistan Army said Saturday.

Shukri Jumma, head of the external operations of Al-Qaeda network, was killed along with one of his aides in the Shen Warsak area of South Waziristan near Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The deaths resulted from an army raid, Inter Services Public Relations, which speaks for the Pakistan Army, said.

It was not clear when the raid was conducted. Shukri Juma is the highest-ranked Al-Qaeda operative killed in Pakistan after the network’s slain chief, Osama bin Laden, who was killed in a U.S. operation in 2011.

Five other aides of Shukri Juma were arrested in the raid, the public relations service said.

Shukri Juma came into prominence following the arrest of the Pakistani doctor Aafia Siddiqui in 2004 in the U.S.

Siddiqui, who is serving an 86-year sentence in a US jail for attacking an American soldier during interrogation in Afghanistan Ghazni province, was charged by the FBI with raising funds for Al-Qaeda under the direction of Shukri Juma.

AA