Unmanned US Predator or Reaper strike aircraft killed 15 Taliban fighters, including two commanders of a faction considered to be "good Taliban" by the Pakistani government, during a pair of strikes in South Waziristan today. The US has carried out three strikes in the Taliban-controlled Pakistani tribal agency in five days.
In the first strike, drones fired four missiles at a vehicle traveling in the Drey Nishtar area of South Waziristan, near the Afghan border, killing two Taliban commanders and six fighters loyal to Mullah Nazir, AFP reported. "Amir Hamza and Shamsullah," two of Nazir's commanders, "were considered important for Nazir," a Pakistani official told the news agency.
In the second strike, Predators fired several missiles at a vehicle traveling in the Shawal area of South Waziristan, killing seven Taliban fighters, according to Geo News. No senior terrorist commanders or operatives have been reported killed in the second strike.
"Good Taliban" leader Mullah Nazir also an al Qaeda leader
Mullah Nazir has openly supported Taliban emir Mullah Omar and al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, and wages jihad in Afghanistan. In an interview with the Asia Times, Nazir rejected claims that he opposed al Qaeda, and affirmed that he considered himself to be a member of the global terror organization.
"Al Qaeda and the Taliban are one and the same," Nazir said. "At an operational level we might have different strategies, but at the policy level we are one and the same.... This is wrong that I am anti-al Qaeda. I am part of al Qaeda."
Pakistan's military and intelligence services consider Nazir and his followers "good Taliban" as they do not openly seek the overthrow of the Pakistani state.
In the summer of 2009, the military signed a peace agreement with Nazir stipulating that he would not shelter al Qaeda or members of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, which were based in the Mehsud tribal areas of South Waziristan. The Pakistani government launched a military operation against the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan in October 2009, but left Nazir's areas untouched. Nazir has continued to allow the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, al Qaeda, and other terror groups safe haven in his tribal areas.
Significantly, more senior al Qaeda leaders have been killed in Nazir's tribal areas during the US air campaign than in those of any other Taliban leader in Pakistan. Nazir also shelters the Mehsuds from the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, in violation of the peace agreement with the Pakistani government.
In the past, the US has killed several senior al Qaeda leaders in Nazir's territories. One of the most senior al Qaeda leaders killed was Midhat Mursi al Sayyid Umar, better known as Abu Khabab al Masri. Abu Khabab was killed along with four members of his staff in a Predator strike on July 28, 2008.
Two other top al Qaeda leaders killed while in Nazir's care were Osama al Kini (Fahid Mohammed Ally Msalam), al Qaeda's operations chief in Pakistan; and Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan, one of al Kini's senior aides. They died in an airstrike in the town of Karikot on Jan. 1, 2009. Both men were wanted by the US for their involvement in the 1998 suicide attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
The US believes it killed Abu Zaid al Iraqi during a Feb. 20, 2010 airstrike in Azam Warzak. Abu Zaid is said to be al Qaeda's top financier in Pakistan.
In another strike in Nazir's territory in 2010, US Predators killed Abu Hazwa Jawfi, who is said to have led Jundallah, a Pakistani terror group that is based in Karachi and maintains close ties with al Qaeda.
And Ilyas Kashmiri, the leader of al Qaeda's Lashkar-al-Zil, or Shadow Army, was reported to have been killed in a June 3 Predator strike in Nazir's tribal areas. Kashmiri's death has not been confirmed, however. He is reported to have been spotted meeting with Hakeemullah Mehsud, the leader of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, in North Waziristan several weeks ago.
US strikes in Pakistan in 2012
The US has hit targets in South Waziristan three times in the past five days. In addition to the pair of strikes today, a strike took place in the Makeen area on March 9, killing 13 "militants." No senior terrorists leaders or operatives were reported killed in the strike.
The US has carried out 10 strikes total this year. The other seven strikes occurred in North Waziristan; six of those strikes have been executed in or around Miramshah in North Waziristan, a stronghold of the Haqqani Network.
The program has been scaled down from its peak in 2010, when the US conducted 117 strikes, according to data collected by The Long War Journal. In 2011, the US carried out just 64 strikes in Pakistan's border regions. With only 10 strikes in the first 11 weeks of 2012, the US is on a pace to carry out just 47 strikes in Pakistan this year.
The first strike this year took place on Jan. 11; it was the first by the US in Pakistan in 55 days. The previous strike took place on Nov. 16, 2011. The pause was the longest since the program was ramped up at the end of July 2008 [see LWJ report, US drone strikes in Pakistan on longest pause since 2008, from Dec. 19, 2011].
The program was put on hold from the end of November to the second week in January, following a clash between US forces and Pakistani Frontier Corps troops on the border of the Afghan province of Kunar and the Pakistani tribal area of Mohmand on Nov. 25-26. The US troops struck in Pakistan after taking mortar and machine gun fire on the Afghan side of the border from Pakistani troops. Twenty-four Pakistani Frontier Corps troops were killed.
The clash led to Pakistan's closure of the border crossings in Chaman and Khyber to NATO supply columns destined for Afghanistan; the supply lines remain closed to this day. In the aftermath of the Mohmand incident, Pakistan also threatened to shoot down US drones flying in Pakistani airspace, and ejected US drones and personnel from the Shamsi Airbase in Baluchistan.
US officials told The Long War Journal on Dec. 12, 2011 that the program had been put "on hold" due to tensions over the Mohmand incident, but that the drones would strike again if a high value terrorist target that could not be ignored was spotted.
The Jan. 11 strike killed Aslam Awan, a deputy to the leader of al Qaeda's external operations network. Awan was a Pakistani citizen from Abbottabad, the same town where Osama bin Laden was killed by US forces in a cross-border raid in May 2011. Awan is the most senior al Qaeda leader killed in a drone strike since mid-October, when Abu Miqdad al Masri, a member of al Qaeda's Shura Majlis who also was involved in al Qaeda's external operations, was killed. [For a list of senior terrorist leaders and operatives killed in drone strikes, see LWJ report, Senior al Qaeda and Taliban leaders killed in US airstrikes in Pakistan, 2004 - 2012.]
Hakeemullah Mehsud, the leader of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, was also rumored to have been killed in the Jan. 11 strike. His death has not been confirmed, however, and the Pakistani Taliban have denied he was killed.
The US also killed Badr Mansoor, a senior Taliban and al Qaeda leader in a Feb. 8 strike in Miramshah's bazaar. Mansoor ran training camps in the area and sent fighters to battle NATO and Afghan forces across the border, and linked up members of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen with al Qaeda to fight in Afghanistan.
Despite the US airstrikes, al Qaeda operatives claim they are still capable of conducting training and operations in the area. Abu Zubaydah al Lubnani, a Lebanese member of al Qaeda who operates along the Afghan-Pakistani border, has said that while the drones have "delayed some operations or even stopped them," the terror group is still functioning in the region.
"I want here to confirm that Qaedat al-Jihad is still standing in Khorasan, solid and strong, despite what hit it, and it is still producing operations and it doesn't know the path of despair...," Lubnani said in statement that was recently released on jihadist forums. The statement was translated by the SITE Intelligence Group.