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Click to view slide show of the Haqqani Network. Pictured is Nasiruddin Haqqani. |
The US has carried out its second Predator airstrike inside Pakistan’s tribal areas this month, killing six people, including several “foreigners.”
The strike took place today in the village of Anghar Kala, just outside of Miramshah, the main town in Pakistan’s Taliban-controlled tribal agency of North Waziristan. AFP reported that two vehicles were the targets of the attack, while Geo News claimed that four missiles were fired from Predators or the more more deadly Reapers and struck a compound and a vehicle.
Strike takes place in Haqqani Network territory
The village of Anghar Kala is in the sphere of influence of the Haqqani Network, a Taliban group led by mujahedeen commander Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Siraj. The Haqqanis are closely allied to al Qaeda and to the Taliban, led by Mullah Omar. Siraj Haqqani is the leader of the Miramshah Regional Military Shura, one of the Taliban’s top four commands. In addition, Siraj sits on the Taliban’s Quetta Shura and is also a member of al Qaeda’s Shura Majlis. The Haqqanis are based on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border, and operate primarily in the Afghan provinces of Khost, Paktia, and Paktika.
Another top leader of the Haqqani Network is Nasiruddin Haqqani, a brother of Siraj. In July, the US Treasury added Nasiruddin to the list of specially designated global terrorists. Nasiruddin has traveled to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates between 2004-2009 to carry out fundraising for the Haqqani Network, al Qaeda, and the Taliban.
The US has been targeting the Haqqani Network in Pakistan as part of its Predator air campaign. On Feb. 18, the US killed Mohammed Haqqani, another of the 12 sons of Jalaluddin Haqqani, in an airstrike in Danda Darpa Khel, just outside Miramshah. Mohammed had served as a military commander for the Haqqani Network. Over the past year, Siraj Haqqani and his military commander, Mullah Sangeen Zadran, have been the targets of several strikes.
Despite the known presence of al Qaeda and other foreign groups in North Waziristan, and requests by the US that action be taken against these groups, the Pakistani military has indicated that it has no plans to take on the Haqqani Network or allied Taliban leaders Hafiz Gul Bahadar and Mullah Nazir. The Haqqanis, Bahadar, and Nazir are considered “good Taliban” by the Pakistani military establishment as they do not carry out attacks inside Pakistan. The US military has been lobbying Pakistan to take on the Haqqani Network, but has recently eased the pressure after recognizing that the Pakistani government has no interest in tackling the al Qaeda-linked group.
Background on US strikes in Pakistan
Today’s strike is the second reported inside Pakistan in August. The last strike took place on Aug. 14, also on terrain controlled by the Haqqani Network fighters. Twelve “rebels” were killed in the strike, but no senior Taliban, Haqqani Network, or al Qaeda operatives were reported killed.
Prior to the Aug. 14 strike, the previous attack was on July 25. The 20-day pause in strikes between July 25 and Aug. 14 is the longest since the attacks were ramped up in July 2008. Over the past year, the US has averaged between six to eight strikes a month. Last month, the US carried out just four attacks inside Pakistan.
So far this year, the US has carried out 51 strikes in Pakistan; all but five have taken place in North Waziristan. The other five strikes took place in South Waziristan and in the tribal agency of Khyber.
The US is well on its way to exceeding last year’s strike total in Pakistan. In 2009, the US carried out 53 strikes in Pakistan; and in 2008, the US carried out 36 strikes in the country. [For up-to-date charts on the US air campaign in Pakistan, see LWJ Special Report, Charting the data for US airstrikes in Pakistan, 2004 – 2010.]
Over the past several months, unmanned US Predator and Reaper strike aircraft have been pounding Taliban and al Qaeda hideouts in the tribal areas in an effort to kill senior terror leaders and disrupt the networks that threaten Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the West. [For more information, see LWJ report, Senior al Qaeda and Taliban leaders killed in US airstrikes in Pakistan, 2004 – 2010.]
The US scored its biggest success in the air campaign in Pakistan earlier this year. On May 21, a US strike in North Waziristan killed Mustafa Abu Yazid, one of al Qaeda’s top leaders, and the most senior al Qaeda leader to have been killed in the US air campaign in Pakistan to date.
Yazid served as the leader of al Qaeda in Afghanistan and the wider Khorasan, and more importantly, as al Qaeda’s top financier, which put him in charge of the terror group’s purse strings. He served on al Qaeda’s Shura Majlis, or top decision-making council. Yazid also was closely allied with the Taliban and advocated the program of embedding small al Qaeda teams with Taliban forces in Afghanistan.
And earlier this month, another top terrorist leader was confirmed killed. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) recently confirmed that its leader, Tahir Yuldashev, was killed in the aftermath of the Aug. 27, 2009, airstrike in South Waziristan. Yuldashev was close to Osama bin Laden and was also a member of al Qaeda’s Shura Majlis. The IMU is an al Qaeda affiliate that is based along the Afghan and Pakistani border.
5 Comments
Since General Petraeus took over from General McChrystal it seems to me that the tempo against the Taliban (and Taliban commanders, specifically) has increased significantly, especially on the Afghan side of the border. I sort of hate to read articles like the following, but I suspect it’s true. I also suspect that if the increased tempo is real and not my imagination that in part it’s meant to help force the Taliban to the negotiating table.
The Hill: Sen. Kerry: ‘Very active’ efforts under way to reach settlement with Taliban
I continue to hear how few AQ are in afghanistan.But I continue to hear news of these AQ operatives although killed in pakistan they were operating in afghanistan.The claims are only 50-100 AQ in afghanistan but these dead guys clearly have more help than has been reported.Does anybody really know how many AQ are operating in Afghanistan,how deep their pockets are and how many sleepers are in country.
Tim – I suspect the Talib themselves aren’t sure exactly how many AQ they have working with/for them at any one time, or where. Only AQ would know the answers to that and your other questions.
You can almost take it for granted that any time the Taliban are operating within Afghanistan in groups of larger then 200 or so, they have direct AQ support and coordination.
Just as you can often tell the level of ISI support for a specific Taliban unit/group by the age and condition of their weapons.
Try and hit your space bar after periods. It makes things easier to read…
HEAD
EAST,
R
Marlin, thanks for your posts which always add new information.
I hate this ‘dancing with the devil’ stuff myself. I’m afraid there can be no solution to Afghanistan until there is a solution to Pakistan also. They are inextricably linked.
Here are a couple of interesting articles, in case you missed them
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/08/petraeus-interview/?intcid=postnav
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/world/asia/23taliban.html
Pakistan is trying everything possible to recapture its influence in Afghanistan. They and their Talibanis tasted blood and think they can still go back to those medievial days. Hence the rat lines across the Durand line.
The floods might swell the ranks of the unemployed and hence the rats. Also, it is conceivable that the US will be blamed for the humanitarian disaster. Whereas, it is actually the monumental corruption of their military governance and the civilian government who are responsible for their gross inadequacies. This disaster will hopefully also remind all Pakistanis that their is one thing more important than their nuclear arsenal and that is food. Ol’ guns n butter! And there is one thing more important than their military power, and that is, electric power. And their is one thing more important than their export to stay plugged in to the rest of the world.
This is the moment when the US should offer the Pakistanis the $50 billion that they need in exchange for all their nukes and staying out of Afghanistan. Now thats a real piece of cheese–if they bite, well and good; if they don’t this is a sure way of turning international opinion against Pak in a big way. The stage is then set for the real action required to solve the AfPak problem–the Pak Army>ISI>Taliban>AQ>jihadis….remember that ‘SAME TO YOU’ cartoon that Bill printed recently…
Things are going to get interesting.
At Obama’s West Point speech in Nov, it struck me as curious, his choice of the word ‘transfer’, in connection with the July 2011 troop withdrawal. Now Petraeus is also using similar language, to maintain flexibility.
I get a sense that these guys have thought through a few steps ahead. Its a field, a theatre, of all possibilities.
We’ll see where we are going, but i doubt we are going to let the Pakistani’s expand their terror factories into Afghanistan, again!
“And their is one thing more important than their export to stay plugged in to the rest of the world.”
I meant to say there:
And there is one thing more important than their export of terror, which is to stay plugged in to the rest of the world.
So there we are, my spelling’s improved too in these few hours 😉 And in the meantime, some more strikes…