Jul 28 2008
US Taking Out Prime Enemy Targets In Pakistan – UPDATED & Got Him!
Update: BBC is reporting confirmation from the Taliban that a top AQ chemical weapon’s expert has been killed today in Pakistan by what is likely a US missile. Here is the man’s bio and picture at the US National Counter-Terrorism Center website:
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Good job folks – scratch one more mass murderer.
Update: AFP now reporting it is al-Qaeda’s top weapons expert:
A top Al-Qaeda expert on chemical and biological weapons is believed to have been killed Monday in a suspected US missile strike in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas, security officials said.
Egyptian militant Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar, also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri, had a five-million-US-dollar bounty on his head and allegedly ran terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.
Seems this is the second (or third) al-Masri we have killed. May Allah Bless al-Masri with 70 virgin pigs to pass his time in hell.
Update: OK, word is this was an effort to kill a second tier leader al-Qaeda leader (top tier being Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri (an Egyptian of interest)):
Pakistani officials said an unnamed Middle Eastern al-Qaeda member in the second tier of the organisation, behind Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, was the target of the attack.
Fingers crossed we got whoever we targeted.
Update: Seems those dead Arab Fighters were Egyptian – and we all know of one specific Egyptian al-Qaeda leader we would like to see sent to meet his maker!
The identities of those killed is not known, though a local official said that the house which was destroyed was rented out by a group of foreign Arabs, believed to be Egyptians.
One other previous update is below. – end update
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A possible US missile, possibly fired from a Predator Drone, has taken out another set of enemy targets in Pakistan’s South Waziristan Agency inside the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA – click on map above to see larger version).
A suspected U.S. missile strike on a Pakistani madrasa killed six people, including foreigners, on Monday in tribal lands regarded as an al Qaeda and Taliban hotbed, intelligence officials said.
The target of the pre-dawn attack was a house close to a madrasa used by militants near Azam Warsak village, about 20 km (12 miles) west of Wana, the main town of the South Waziristan region bordering Afghanistan.
Emphasis mine. The good news comes from AFP on those ‘foreigners’:
Three missiles struck a house attached to a mosque in the South Waziristan tribal district, an area bordering Afghanistan that is viewed by Washington as a haven for Al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists, officials said.
“Six people are dead and three others injured after three missiles hit a house in Azam Warsak (village),” a senior security official told AFP. He said those killed were three “suspected Arab militants and three young boys.”
Those must be some high value targets to (a) spend three missiles on them and (b) target them while so close to a religious center where ‘innocent’ civilians could be killed or injured. This has been the Standard Operating Procedure for many months now in the region. If we have actionable and solid intelligence on foreign fighter leaders we can take them out with our unmanned or over-the-horizon weapons systems. And the Pakistan government is informed of the action in a manner that does not allow anyone tipping off the targets.
Will be interesting to see who we got.
Update: The Long War Journal has a great recap of previous missile strikes aimed at enemy leaders in Pakistan.
Hate to be a damper on your optimism, but there’s also a story at the Long War Journal covering how Pakistan has just given the northern province of Hangu to the Taliban, while withdrawing all of it’s troops.
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/07/pakistan_cedes_hangu.php
As part of the agreement, it appears that Pakistan has agreed to release the “high level” Taliban figures it has captured.
Pakistan is no longer our friend or our ally. From the article:
“The security situation in northwestern Pakistan and in neighboring Afghanistan has rapidly deteriorated since the government initiated its latest round of peace accords with the Taliban and allied extremists in the tribal areas and settled districts in the Northwest Frontier Province. Peace agreements have been signed with the Taliban in North Waziristan, Swat, Dir, Bajaur, Malakand, Mohmand, Khyber, and Orakzai.
Negotiations are underway in South Waziristan, Kohat, and Mardan. The Taliban have violated the terms of these agreements in every region where accords have been signed.
The Taliban, al Qaeda, and allied terrorist groups have established more than 100 terror camps in the tribal areas and the Northwest Frontier Province, US intelligence officials have told The Long War Journal.
On July 23, Prime Minister Syed Yusaf Raza Gilani and his cabinet were told that more than 8,000 foreign fighters were operating in the tribal areas.”
The Pakistani government’s response? More peace agreements.
They will not fight – they will never fight the Taliban. They are the Taliban.
Here’s hoping that he had some samples with him and making his last living minutes extremely unpleasant.
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