Saleh al Somali, a longtime operative of the terror group, is thought to have been killed in the Dec. 8 strike in Miramshah in North Waziristan. He directed al Qaeda’s operations against targets in the West.
Qari Dawat kidnapped a Norwegian journalist in November who reportedly converted to Islam, and was targeted by the US later that month.
Today’s strike is the first in South Waziristan since late September. The strike took place in an area where Baitullah Mehsud and Khalid Habib were killed in prior attacks.
A senior Promise Day Brigade facilitator with direct links to leadership in Iran was captured in Baghdad. Iraq has stepped up operations against the Mahdi Army.
The identity of the Saudi al Qaeda operatives is not known.
A series of coordinated suicide and car bomb attacks in Baghdad targeted a court complex, a neighborhood near the Interior Ministry, a mosque, and a market.
A terror assault team struck a “sensitive agency” in the city in southern Punjab, killing 12 Pakistanis in the attack.
The strike in Pakistan is the first in two weeks. Al Qaeda and the Taliban have adapted to the US air campaign, US officials fear.
Suicide bombers detonated outside of a bank and a police station in a market in the eastern city.
Taliban commander Noor Akbar was among those killed in a strike on a complex in the remote mountain regions of Kunar.
The attack is the latest in the Taliban’s campaign against military, governmental, and tribal targets.
One Pakistani soldier was killed after a platoon of Taliban fighters attacked a checkpoint in Wana. The area is controlled by Mullah Nazir, who signed a peace agreement with the military.
The operation to reclaim northern and central Helmand from the Taliban has begun as an additional 9,000 Marines are heading to Helmand.
Forty Pakistani worshippers were killed and 83 more were wounded when a suicide assault team opened fire in a mosque in the military garrison city. Two senior generals were killed in the attack.
Former Gitmo detainee Ibrahim Suleiman al Rubaish has emerged as a leading ideologue for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Rubaish repeatedly attacks the Saudi government in his messages and has justified assassinations of Saudi officials. At Gitmo, Rubaish admitted he was a committed jihadist who had been trained in an al Qaeda camp.
The ministers of health, education, and higher education, along with two reporters from Shabelle and Al Arabia were among 19 killed in a suicide attack at a graduation ceremony for medical students at a hotel in Mogadishu.
The Taliban contest or control of large areas of Afghanistan, and are in control of several districts in the north, south, east, and west.
One naval security guard was killed after the teenaged suicide bomber detonated at the guardpost outside the naval headquarters in the capital of Islamabad.
A member of a secular Pashtun political party who served in the provincial assembly was killed as he greeted Eid well-wishers outside his home in Swat.
The commander of the Frontier Corps in Khyber said the Lashkar-e-Islam has been cleared from the Bara region.
Afghan border police called for help after a border police center came under attack in Khost.
Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps are concentrating on Taliban strongholds in a region that borders the Arakzai, Kurram, and Khyber tribal agencies.
Abdullah Shah Mehsud is one of 19 most-wanted Taliban commanders in the South Waziristan region. He was detained recently in Tank.
Senior Taliban leaders have dodged the operation, and the bulk of the forces have regrouped in North Waziristan, Arakzai, Khyber, and Kurram.
Al Qaeda is teaming up with Ba’athist elements, sparking fears that eastern Syrian will “begin to look like northwestern Pakistan.”
The Frontier Corps killed 18 members of the Lashkar-e-Islam in the Bara region in the latest attempt to relieve the pressure on Peshawar.
Members of a rebel military unit have enlisted to fight with al Qaeda and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, according to the Tajik National Security Committee.
The military is conducting a limited operation in the Arakzai tribal agency, where fighting has intensified over the past week.
The military said 25 Taliban fighters were killed and eight, including a commander, were captured, during fighting in Arakzai, Hangu, Khyber, and Bajaur. Another 14 Taliban fighters and six soldiers were killed in South Waziristan.
The Arakzai-based Taliban group has been implicated in four of the five suicide attacks in Islamabad this year.