Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the former emir of the Jamaat-e-Islami, spoke at a funeral service for Engineer Ahsan Aziz, who was killed on Aug. 18. Syed Salahuddin, the emir of the Hizbul Mujahideen, was also in attendance.
Seven out of the last 10 drone strikes have taken place in the Shawal Valley, which is administered by “good Taliban” commander Hafiz Gul Bahadar.
As green-on-blue attacks spike, US and Afghan military officials have taken increasingly strong measures to combat attacks on their forces by Taliban infiltrators and disgruntled Afghan troops. In 2012, green-on-blue attacks accounted for 15% of ISAF deaths.
A jihadist said that the Pakistani terror group is closely allied to the Taliban and al Qaeda under the guise of the “Omar Brigade.”
Al Qaeda has released a biography of Atiyah Abd al Rahman, a senior al Qaeda operative who served as Osama bin Laden’s chief-of-staff. Rahman “engineered” the December 2009 terrorist attack on Combat Outpost Chapman that killed seven CIA officials and a Jordanian intelligence officer.
Al Qaeda in Iraq fighters dressed as policemen are seen executing policemen with a silenced pistol during the deadly March 5 raid in Anbar province.
The strike is the fourth in Pakistan in five days; all took place in North Waziristan in areas under the control of Hafiz Gul Bahadar.
Mutaqi passed “critical information between the senior al Qaeda associated Taliban leaders in Kunar province” and plotted suicide attacks in the region. The commander in Ghazni helped al Qaeda fighters travel throughout the region.
Yasir was involved in the Aug. 8 suicide attack in Asadabad, Kunar, that killed a command sergeant major and two staff officers for the 4th Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, and a USAID foreign service officer.
Today’s attack is the eighth by Afghan forces on International Assistance Force troops within the past two weeks. The US government is pressing Afghanistan for solutions and the Taliban are ramping up their propaganda.
The Taliban reportedly gathered in Chapah Darah district to conduct a public execution when they were targeted in an airstrike. A second strike in Watahpur, a known haven for al Qaeda and the Lashkar-e-Taiba, killed “many” insurgents, including foreigners.
The Predators and Reapers struck a vehicle in the Shawal Valley, and then followed up and hit the recovery operations. There have been three drone strikes in Shawal in the past 24 hours.
The Shawal Valley has been the focus of recent drone strikes in Pakistan. The strikes in Pakistan have been on the decline the past three months; the US has launched only eight since June 4.
Several Turks affiliated with the IJU have been killed while waging jihad in Afghanistan, and others have been arrested in foiled plots to carry out attacks against European and US targets in Europe.
So far this year, green-on-blue attacks have caused 13 percent of the ISAF deaths. Nine ISAF soldiers have been killed by Afghan forces in the past 11 days.
Abu Hafs al Tunisi was among five foreign fighters killed in the Aug. 8 strike in Al Baydah province. He was imprisoned in Tunisia before joining al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula sometime after the Tunisian uprising last year.
Mullah Anwar served as the IMU’s leader in the Burkah district in Afghanistan’s Baghlan province, and was responsible for the assassination of a district governor and a member of the Afghan High Peace Council in Takhar.
The Taliban claimed to have shot down a Chinook in Shah Wali Kot district; ISAF said the cause of the crash is under investigation.
Six Taliban fighters and two Pakistanis were killed during the fighting at an airbase that is thought to be related to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. The Taliban claimed credit for the attack.
Al Qaeda supporter Muhammad Mahmoud has recruited German and Austrian Salafists to set up a “colony” in Egypt.
The new jihadist group is the latest to spring up in the Palestinian Territories and the neighboring Egyptian Sinai.
The attack took place in Zaranj, the provincial capital of Nimroz. The Taliban have launched several high-profile attacks in western Afghanistan this year.
The Haqqani Network suicide assault on a major US base in Khost was promoted by the Taliban on their propaganda website.
Newly released intelligence files on Mohamed Merah indicate he had been identified as a dangerous Islamist for well over a year before he killed seven people. And an audiotape suggests he trained for jihad in Pakistan and was working for al Qaeda in France.
NDS officials arrested a heavily armed Haqqani Network cell in Kabul that was planning to attack the Afghan Parliament, the Afghan Presidential Palace, and the Afghan Second-Vice President. It is the second such raid in Kabul since August 1.
ISAF said the al Qaeda-associated insurgent “coordinates the movement of al Qaeda terrorists throughout the region.”
There have been three green-on-blue attacks reported in the past four days; four US troops and one Afghan soldier have been killed in the attacks.
Ustad Ahmad Farooq, al Qaeda’s spokesman for Pakistan, said that jihadists must “pay special attention to targeting American and NATO supply lines” in order to help their “Afghan brothers.”
The pair of suicide bombers hit Western soldiers as they were going to a meeting of the provincial council.
Two Egyptians, a Tunisian, a Saudi, and a Bahraini were among the seven AQAP fighters killed in one of the strikes. Abdullah Awad al Masri, a senior al Qaeda bombmaker, was also killed.