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On 13 January 2006 the Central Intelligence Agency fired missiles into the Pakistani village of Damadola in the Bajaur tribal area, about seven kilometres from the Afghan border, killing at least 18 people. Originally the Bajaur tribal area government claimed that at least four foreign members of al-Qaeda were among the dead. United States and Pakistani officials later admitted that no al-Qaeda leaders perished in the strike and that only local villagers were killed. The attack purportedly targeted Ayman al-Zawahiri, second-in-command of al-Qaeda after Osama bin Laden, who was thought to be in the village.


The attack was carried out by four CIA-operated unmanned Predator drones which launched four Hellfire missiles at a mud-walled compound, destroying three houses several hundred yards apart. Another report said that as many as 10 missiles were fired. The official number of dead is 18, including eight men, five women and five children, but other reports indicate that as many as 25 people were killed. Fourteen of the dead were said to be from the same family. There is confusion over the actual number killed, since reports claims that 13–15 of the dead were buried immediately. Some sources say this was 'according to Islamic custom', others say they were buried 'without customary funeral arrangements'.


The Associated Press reported that unnamed Pakistani intelligence officials asserted that the attack was conducted based on intelligence that al-Zawahiri was invited to a dinner to mark the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha at the compound that was targeted. In the days after the attack, it was reported that several foreign members of al-Qaeda were among the dead. The provincial government of Bajaur, where the attack took place, stated that 'four or five foreign terrorists' were killed in the attack, and that '10 or 12' extremists had attended in all. ABC reported that al-Qaeda bomb maker and chemical weapons expert Midhat Mursi was killed in the strike. According to Pakistani officials, Khalid Habib, the al-Qaeda operations chief for Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Abdul Rehman al Magrabi, a senior operations commander for al-Qaeda, were also killed. It was reported that the al-Qaeda members were attending a 'terror summit' called to funnel new money into attacks against US forces in Afghanistan. United States and Pakistani officials later admitted that none of those al-Qaeda members perished in the strike and that only local villagers were killed. Midhat Mursi and Khalib Habib were killed in two other missile strikes in 2008.


Two Pakistani intelligence officials said Libyan-born Abu Faraj al-Libbi, who was captured in Pakistan in May 2005, told interrogators that he had met al-Zawahiri last year at the home of Bakhtpur Khan, one of the thirteen villagers killed in the airstrike. After that confession, US and Pakistani intelligence agents, with the help of local tribesmen and Afghans, monitored Bakhtpur Khan's home.


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