Map of the Miramshah area in North Waziristan. Click to view larger map.
US Predator strike aircraft fired a barrage of missiles at a compound in Pakistan’s Taliban-controlled tribal agency of North Waziristan today, killing 6 terrorists.
Unmanned Predators or the heavily armed and deadly Reapers fired at least six missiles at a group of “fighters” returning to North Waziristan from Khost province in Afghanistan, AFP reported. The strike took place in the village of Gulli Khel, in the Ghulam Khan area just north of Miramshah.
No senior al Qaeda or Taliban fighters have been reported killed in strike. The nature of the strike indicates that a senior commander or wanted operative was targeted in the attack.
The Ghulam Khan 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 Haqqanis are based on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border.
The US has targeted Siraj and other top-level Haqqani Network commanders since 2008. 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. The US military has heavily targeted the Haqqani Network’s leadership in raids and airstrikes in the Afghan provinces of Khost, Paktia, and Paktika.
On Nov. 5, US and Afghan forces captured the Haqqani Network’s shadow governor for the Spera district in Khost province. The Spera district directly borders Pakistan, and the shadow governor, who was not named, coordinated “the facilitation of foreign fighters from Pakistan” as well as directed and executed ambushes against combined forces.
On Oct. 31, five Haqqani Network leaders, including Zubair, a weapons facilitator for foreign fighters in the area, were killed during a raid in Paktia’s Zadran district.
Also, on Nov. 9, US and Afghan forces captured a Haqqani Network weapons dealer as he was en route to to Saudi Arabia.
The Predator strikes, by the numbers
Today’s strike is the seventh US attack in Pakistan this month. On Nov. 1, a strike in Mir Ali, a large town in North Waziristan, killed six “militants.” Three strikes on Nov. 3 killed 13 terrorists, and a pair of strikes on Nov. 7 killed 14 more.
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. 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 98 attacks inside Pakistan this year, which is more than double the number of strikes in Pakistan just two years ago. A few months ago, the US exceeded last year’s strike total of 53 with a strike in Kurram in late August. 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.]
All but nine of this year’s 98 strikes have taken place in North Waziristan. 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.
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.]
1 Comment
one up for the good guys!