WASHINGTON -- The Defense Department says an airstrike in Afghanistan last month killed al Qaeda’s top leader in the eastern part of the country.

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook has issued a written statement saying a precision strike conducted by the U.S. military on Oct. 23 in Kunar, Afghanistan, killed Faruq al-Qatani.

Cook says al-Qatani was one of al Qaeda’s “senior plotters of attacks against the United States.”

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Cook says U.S. officials are still working to determine whether a second strike on the same date killed its target, Bilal al-Utabi, another al Qaeda leader in Afghanistan.