On 11 August 2009, Asia Times Online claimed that Rauf was alive and living in North Waziristan.[8] On 8 July 2010, however, a US counterterrorism official told the New York Daily News that Rauf was killed.[9] Some of Rauf's associates also believe that he never escaped from prison in 2007 and that he might have been dead long before the airstrike;[10] Hashmat Malik, a lawyer representing the family of Rauf's wife Umat al-Warood, has also argued that Rauf was probably killed during a prison shootout at the time of his alleged escape.[4] British security sources also believed he might still be alive.[11]