US Predators have struck again in Pakistan’s Taliban-controlled tribal agency of North Waziristan. The airstrike is the third in two days.
Unmanned Predators or the more deadly Reapers fired three missiles today at a compound and a vehicle in the village of Mizer in the Data Khel region in North Waziristan.
Eight “terrorists” were killed in the strike, SAMAA reported. Pakistani intelligence officials confirmed the strike and said five “militants” were killed, Dawn reported.
Data Khel is the stronghold of Hafiz Gul Bahadar, a Taliban commander who is viewed as “good Taliban” by the Pakistani military as he does not advocate attacks on the Pakistani state. Bahadar supports attacks in Afghanistan and shelters al Qaeda fighters.
The US carried out two strikes in Pakistan yesterday. In those strikes, 15 terrorists were killed in attacks in Data Khel and Miramshah, a stronghold of the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani Network. A Taliban commander known as Inayatullah is reported to have been killed in the Data Khel attack.
Today’s strike is the 57th this year. The US exceeded last year’s strike total of 53 with a strike in Kurram late last month. In 2008, the US carried out 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.]
All but six of this year’s 57 strikes have taken place in North Waziristan. Of the six strikes that have occurred outside of North Waziristan, four took place in South Waziristan, one occurred in Khyber, and one took place in Kurram.
Background on recent US strikes in Pakistan
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.
1 Comment
Sounds like they are getting good actionable intel, and this is P-stans “good” talibs? To hell w/ that, strike them wherever they are. The Pak gov, ISI have been giving us the run around too many times. I hope they get thier #1 soon. Like yesterday.