The Department of Defense confirmed that the senior al Qaeda strategist, who was dispatched years ago by al Qaeda from the Afghanistan-Pakistan region to Syria, was killed in an airstrike on Oct. 15. Nasr’s death is a blow to al Qaeda.
Jalaluddin, the former mufti for Khorasan Province, rose thought the jihadist ranks in the Afghan-Pakistan region and was mentored by Sheikh Aminullah, an influential Taliban leader and al Qaeda facilitator, before defecting to the Islamic State. He taught at the Ganj Madrassa, which is listed by the US as a terrorist facility.
The strike took place in an area in Paksitan’s tribal agency of South Waziristan that is administered by Sajna Mehsud, who heads a splinter faction that broke away from the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan (TTP) in May 2014.
The Movement of the Taliban is capable of organizing, training and executing attacks such as today’s assault on the Air Force camp near Peshawar despite the military offensive that is targeting the group in North Waziristan.
The raid that killed “Khuram,” the al Qaeda leader, took place in the same district in Paktika province where 15 Pakistani Taliban fighters were reported killed last week.
Both the Taliban in Pakistan and its ally, al Qaeda, have stepped up their presence in eastern Afghanistan over the past several years.
Al Qaeda’s branches and allies have held or continue to control ground in Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Mali, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Libya, contrary to the narrative that only the Islamic State seeks to take territory.
Mullah Mansour Dadullah, who has rejected the appointment of Mullah Mansour to replace Mullah Omar, also said that the Taliban’s leadership is based in Pakistan. He has not expressed a desire to join the Islamic State.
Siraj Haqqani’s brother, Abdul Aziz, is a key military commander who directs operations for the Haqqani Network and also is a member of the Kabul Attack Network. He is the 14th Haqqani network leader added to the US list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists since 2008. All have ties to al Qaeda.
Hazrat, who is also known as Abu Hazefa, was killed in Kunduz, where a number of jihadist groups are fighting Afghan forces. He served as a Taliban military commander and also was a member of al Qaeda.
Earlier this month, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan officially swore allegiance to the Islamic State’s emir, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. On August 20, fighters from the Islamic Jihad Union followed in al Qaeda’s footsteps and pledged loyalty to Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, the newly appointed leader of the Taliban.
The attacks in Kabul and elsewhere over the weekend have caused top Afghan officials to accuse the Pakistani government of continuing to back the Taliban even while hosting peace talks.
Five suspected jihadists were killed in the strike, which took place in the al Qaeda and Taliban haven of Datta Khel.
Reports surfaced that veteran jihadist leader Jalaluddin Haqqani died in 2014, but the Afghan Taliban have gone on the record stating that the patriarch of the Haqqani Network is alive.
The Taliban’s new emir is Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour. His top two deputies are Moulavi Haibatullah Akhunzada and Siraj Haqqani. Both Mansour and Haqqani are allied with al Qaeda.
The Taliban’s spokesman has confirmed that Mullah Omar, the so-called “Emir of the Faithful,” is dead.
Malik Ishaq has been in and out of Pakistani custody over the years, despite the fact that he was the head of one of the most violent jihadist groups in Pakistan and directed numerous terror attacks.
The al Qaeda and Taliban-linked jihadist group has operated under the radar of Western officials in Afghanistan, but continues to wage jihad alongside its allies.
Abu Khalil al Sudani worked with Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri for years. He was a member of al Qaeda’s shura council and directed suicide operations. Osama bin Laden’s files reveal that he was one of al Qaeda’s most trusted leaders. The airstrike that killed Sudani took place in the Bermal district of the Paktia province, where the US operated a base before withdrawing its forces.
The spokesman for the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar faction of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan said it “will avenge” the death of Shahidullah Shahid “from the Americans and its allies.” He also claimed a peace council was formed to mediate the dispute between the Islamic State and the Afghan Taliban.
Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost said that Hafiz Saeed Khan is alive, but did confirm that Khorasan province’s deputy emir and spokesman were killed last week in US airstrikes.
The National Directorate of Security (NDS) claimed that the US killed Hafiz Saeed Khan, the Islamic State’s leader for its Khorasan province in an airstrike in Nangarhar. The US has killed top leaders of jihadist organizations in the past, only to watch these groups expand.
Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security claimed that the US killed Shahidullah Shahid, the Islamic State’s spokesman for its Khorasan province, in a recent airstrike in eastern Afghanistan. The death of Shahid, the former spokesman for the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, has not been confirmed.
Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Intelligence said that “Gull Zaman,” his deputy, and five fighters were killed in a US drone strike in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan.
Prior to his capture in July 2014, Maulawi Abdul Rashid Baluch was a senior Taliban member whose activities ranged from waging guerrilla warfare against NATO and Afghan forces to narcotics trafficking. Rashid also served as a liaison to al Qaeda, arranging “planning meetings” between senior Taliban leaders and al Qaeda members in Karachi, Pakistan.
Sa’ad Emarati, a senior jihadist commander as well as a member of the “Khorasan Shura,” was executed for leaving the Islamic State and rejoining the Taliban.
US intelligence agencies thought that Abdul Haq al Turkistani, a member of al Qaeda’s executive council, was killed in a drone strike in February 2010. But according to a jihadist media outlet, he was badly wounded but recovered and assumed command of the Turkistan Islamic Party in 2014.
The attack took place in a section of Pakistan’s tribal agencies where the the US is concentrating its drone campaign in North Waziristan.
Five of the eight strikes that have taken place in Pakistan so far this year have targeted jihadists operating in the Shawal Valley, which spans both North and South Waziristan.
In late May, the Islamic State’s so-called “Khorasan province” released a video threatening the Taliban. Multiple press reports say the two sides have repeatedly fought one another since the beginning of the year. Still, the Islamic State’s presence in the region is likely much smaller than the network operated by the Taliban, al Qaeda, and their allies.