US Predators kill 4 ‘rebels’ in North Waziristan strike

Map of the Miramshah area in North Waziristan. Click to view larger map.

The US struck at terrorists operating in Pakistan’s Taliban-controlled tribal agency of North Waziristan today, killing four “rebels” in a strike on a vehicle near Miramshah.

Unmanned Predator strike aircraft, or the more deadly Reapers, fired two missiles at a vehicle traveling in the village of Spalga in the Miramshah area of North Waziristan, according to reports from the region.

The four “rebels” were killed in the strike on the vehicle, a Pakistani intelligence official told The Associated Press. Pakistani officials often use the terms “rebel” and “militant” to describe al Qaeda and other foreign terrorists based in Pakistan. No senior al Qaeda or Taliban leaders have been reported killed in the strike.

The Miramshah area 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 Afghan Taliban’s top four commands; he sits on the Taliban’s Quetta Shura; and he is also is a member of al Qaeda’s Shura Majlis.

The US has targeted Siraj and other top-level Haqqani Network commanders in Predator strikes since 2008. On June 23, 2009, US Predators struck at a funeral for a local Taliban commander in South Waziristan; Siraj Haqqani and his top lieutenant Mullah Sangeen Zadran were thought to be attending. On Feb. 18 of this year, the US killed Mohammed Haqqani, another of the 12 sons of Jalaluddin Haqqani, in an airstrike in Danda Darpa Khel just outside Miramshah. Mohammed served as a military commander for the Haqqani Network. Siraj is believed to be sheltering in the neighboring tribal agency of Kurram to avoid the Predators.

The Haqqani Network operates on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border. In addition to striking at the Haqqani Network in Pakistan, the US military has heavily targeted the terror group’s leaders in raids and airstrikes in the Afghan provinces of Khost, Paktia, and Paktika. The US military said it has captured 30 senior and mid-level Haqqani Network commanders in Khost province over the past month. But the top-tier Haqqani Network commanders have evaded the US operations on both sides of the border.

This year, the US has been pounding targets in the Miramshah, Datta Khel, and Mir Ali areas of North Waziristan in an effort to kill al Qaeda members involved in a plot to carry out Mumbai-styled terror assaults on European soil. Al Qaeda and allied terror groups such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Islamic Jihad Group, the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Party, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and a number of other Pakistani and Central and South Asian terror groups host or share camps in the region.

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 other senior Taliban leaders in North and South Waziristan, including 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 Predator strikes, by the numbers

Today’s strike is just the third US attack in Pakistan this month. The last strike took place on Dec. 10, when Predators fired missiles at a compound and a vehicle in the village of Khadar Khel in the Datta Khel area, killing four “militants.”

The pace of the strikes since the beginning of September is unprecedented since the US began the air campaign in Pakistan in 2004. September’s record number of 21 strikes was followed by 16 strikes in October and 14 more in November. The previous monthly high was 11 strikes in January 2010, after the Taliban and al Qaeda executed a successful suicide attack at Combat Outpost Chapman that targeted CIA personnel who were active in gathering intelligence for the Predator campaign in Pakistan. In the bombing at COP Chapman, seven CIA officials and a Jordanian intelligence officer were killed.

The US has carried out 108 attacks inside Pakistan this year, more than doubling last year’s number of strikes. In late August, the US exceeded last year’s strike total of 53 with a strike in Kurram. In 2008, the US carried out a total of 36 strikes inside Pakistan. [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.]

This year the strikes have been confined almost exclusively to North Waziristan. All but nine of this year’s 108 strikes have taken place in that tribal agency. Of the nine strikes that have occurred outside of North Waziristan, seven took place in South Waziristan, one occurred in Khyber, and one took place in Kurram.

Since Sept. 1, the US has ramped up airstrikes against the terror groups in North Waziristan, with 52 strikes in the tribal agency. Many of the strikes targeted cells run by the Islamic Jihad Group, which have been plotting to conduct the Mumbai-styled terror assaults in Europe. A Sept. 8 strike killed an IJU commander known as Qureshi, who specialized in training Germans to conduct attacks in their home country.

The US campaign in northwestern Pakistan has targeted top al Qaeda leaders, al Qaeda’s external operations network, and Taliban leaders and fighters who threaten both the Afghan and Pakistani states as well as support al Qaeda’s external operations. [For a list of al Qaeda and Taliban leaders killed in the US air campaign in Pakistan, see LWJ Special Report, Senior al Qaeda and Taliban leaders killed in US airstrikes in Pakistan, 2004 – 2010.]

Tags: Afghanistan, Haqqani Network, Pakistan, Taliban