Pakistan Al-Qaeda chief 'killed by US drone'
US missiles on Thursday killed the most senior Pakistani in Al-Qaeda,
one of the Americans' main targets in the country and wanted for attacks
that killed scores of people, officials said.
Badar Mansoor, who reputedly sent fighters to Afghanistan and ran a
training camp in North Waziristan, was killed in a drone strike near the
Afghan border, Pakistani officials and a member of his group told AFP.
"He died in the missile attacks overnight in Miranshah. His death is
a major blow to Al-Qaeda's abilities to strike in Pakistan," a senior
Pakistani official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
His death was confirmed by one of his loyalists. "Badar Mansoor was
killed in the missile attack," a militant among his group confirmed by
telephone. Intelligence officials in Miranshah, the main town of North
Waziristan, said Mansoor had been killed, but other Pakistani officials
were divided.
"We're not sure. We cannot give confirmation just like that," one of
them told AFP on condition of anonymity. Four militants were reported
killed in the pre-dawn drone strike, which targeted a compound in
Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan. It was only the second
such attack in Pakistan since US President Barack Obama confirmed the
secret drone programme late last month.
Pakistan and the United States are currently taking tentative steps
to repair a serious crisis in relations over last year's covert American
raid that killed Osama bin Laden and US air strikes that killed 24
Pakistani soldiers.The senior Pakistani intelligence official described
Mansoor as the "de facto leader of Al-Qaeda in Pakistan" after his
predecessor, Ilyas Kashmiri, was reported killed in a drone strike last
June.
Unlike Kashmiri, who had a $5 million bounty on his head, Mansoor is
not listed on the US State Department Rewards for Justice list. There
was no immediate confirmation of his death from the United States. But
one Western counter-terrorism expert described Mansoor as the local
chief of Al-Qaeda and one of the Americans' chief targets in Pakistan.
"If it's true, this is very good news for the anti-terrorism fight, and
this was very important for both the US and Pakistan," the official
said.
He called Mansoor Al-Qaeda's go-between with Pakistan's umbrella
Taliban movement and a member of Al-Qaeda's leadership shura in
Pakistan. Officials said Mansoor was responsible for attacks in Karachi
and on the minority Ahmadi community that killed nearly 100 people in
the eastern city of Lahore in May 2010. Ahmadis, considered a sect of
Islam, are subject to severe discrimination in Pakistan, which declared
them non-Muslims in 1974. Aged about 40 and from Dera Ghazi Khan in
Punjab province, Mansoor moved to Miranshah several years ago to set up
his own training camp.
"Western officials believed he was involved in sending fighters to
Afghanistan," the senior Pakistani official told AFP.
US officials say Pakistan's tribal belt provides sanctuary to Taliban
fighting in Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda groups plotting attacks on the West,
Pakistani Taliban who routinely bomb Pakistan and other foreign
fighters.
According to an AFP tally, 45 US missile strikes were reported in
Pakistan's tribal belt in 2009, 101 in 2010, 64 in 2011 and five so far
this year. Obama said the drone programme was a "targeted, focused
effort at people who are on a list of active terrorists". The founder of
the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, was one of the most high
profile casualties, killed in 2009.
But The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, based in London, says
there are credible reports that between 282 and 535 civilians, including
more than 60 children, have been killed in drone attacks since Obama
took office. AFP
|