Top Pakistan militant ‘killed’ in US strike
PESHAWAR, Pakistan: A suspected US drone strike killed a top Pakistani Taleban commander yesterday, Pakistani intelligence officials said, although the militant group denied he was killed.
If confirmed, the death of Waliur Rehman would be a strong blow to the militant group responsible for hundreds of bombings and shootings across Pakistan. The United States has a $ 5 million bounty out on Rehman, who Washington has accused of involvement in the 2009 suicide attack on a US base in Afghanistan that killed seven Americans working for the CIA.
Missiles fired by a US drone slammed into a house early yesterday in Miran Shah, the main town of the North Waziristan tribal region, killing four people including Rehman, three Pakistani officials said.
Two of the officials said their informants in the field saw Rehman’s body, while a third said intelligence authorities had intercepted communications between militants saying Rehman had been killed. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
A spokesman for the Pakistani Taleban, however, denied the reports.
“This appears to me to be false news. I don’t have any such information,” said Ahsanullah Ahsan, speaking to The Associated Press by telephone from an undisclosed location.
Most of North Waziristan is under militant control, and journalists do not have access to the rugged region near the Afghan border, making it difficult to independently confirm such incidents.
The missile attack was the first since Pakistan’s landmark elections on May 11 in which the American drone program was a hotly debated topic.
It was also the first strike in Pakistan since President Barack Obama’s speech last Thursday during which he discussed more restrictive rules he was implementing on the use of the controversial drones in places such as Pakistan and Yemen.
The tribal region in northwestern Pakistan is home to a variety of local and Afghan militant outfits, including Al- Qaeda- linked fighters. The US has often criticized Pakistan, saying it does not vigorously target militants in these areas who then attack American troops in neighboring Afghanistan.
Pakistani officials say their military is already overtaxed by fighting militants in both the tribal regions and in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, and that the casualties they’ve already incurred have not been properly recognized.
Washington’s drone program remains deeply unpopular in Pakistan, even though the number of strikes has dropped significantly since the height of the program in 2010.
The strikes usually target Al- Qaeda- linked insurgents or other militants who fight in Afghanistan against NATO, although some strikes have killed militants who are at war with the Pakistani government.