Top Pak terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri killed in US drone attack

From Rezaul H Laskar
Islamabad, Jun 4 (PTI) Al Qaeda-linked terrorist Ilyas
Kashmiri, a key suspect in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, and
Taliban commander Amir Hamza were killed in a US drone strike
in Pakistan's restive South Waziristan tribal region,
officials and local residents said Saturday.
Kashmiri – included along with Mullah Omar and Ayman
al-Zawahiri in a list of five most wanted terrorists drawn up
by the US – was among nine militants killed in the drone
strike carried out late last night.
Three militants were injured in the attack.
"Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami 313 Brigade confirms the
martyrdom of our leader Ilyas Kashmiri in a US drone strike on
June 3, 2011 at 11.15 pm," HuJI spokesman Abu Hanzala said in
a hand-written fax message sent to Pakistani media groups.
"We will take revenge (for the killing of) our leader
from the US," the statement said.
Kashmiri, 47, was killed when US drones targeted Laman
village, 20 km from Wana, one of the main towns in South
Waziristan Agency.
He was reportedly sitting in an apple orchard with
other militants and had come to the area shortly before the
missile strike.
Amir Hamza, a resident of Wana and a commander of the
Mullah Nazir faction of the Taliban, was killed in the same
drone strike, local journalists said.
Mullah Nazir has an agreement with the government and
many Punjabi Taliban fighters are believed to be living in
Wana and surrounding areas that are controlled by his group.
The bodies of the militants could not be identified
but there was strong evidence that Kashmiri had been killed,
officials were quoted as saying by TV news channels.
Kashmiri's death is another blow to al-Qaeda and its
affiliates as it comes just over a month after Osama bin Laden
was killed in a US raid in the garrison city of Abbottabad on
May 2. Besides the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, Kashmiri was
named as the mastermind of last month's brazen raid on a naval
air station in Karachi that killed 10 security personnel and
destroyed two surveillance aircraft.
The US recently gave Pakistan time till July – the
month when NATO and allied forces will begin withdrawing from
Afghanistan – to launch a military offensive in North
Waziristan tribal region and to capture five most wanted al-
Qaeda and Taliban leaders, including Kashmiri.
The other terrorists on the US list are al-Qaeda
leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, Taliban leader Mullah Omar,
Sirajuddin Haqqani and Atia Abdur Rehman.
Reports have said the US and Pakistan had formed joint
intelligence teams to track these terrorists.
BBC Urdu's Peshawar correspondent Dilawar Wazir, who
belongs to South Waziristan, said he was told by local
residents that Kashmiri was among the nine militants killed in
the US strike late last night.
A resident said witnesses saw the bodies of the
militants killed in the drone strike lying in the apple
orchard this morning.
Local residents buried the bodies in a graveyard in
the same area today.
Security sources said Kashmiri and other senior
militant leaders recently arrived in Waziristan from Khyber
tribal region.
Kashmiri was considered very close to al-Qaida and
reports had suggested that he might become the next chief of
the terrorist network after bin Laden’s death.
Kashmiri belongs to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and some
reports have claimed he served in the Pakistan Army’s elite
Special Service Group.
He was reported killed in a US drone strike in North
Waziristan in September 2009 but re-emerged a month later to
give an interview to Syed Saleem Shahzad, the journalist who
was recently abducted and killed. "Nine militants were killed in last night's drone
attacks and all of them were Pakistani Punjabi Taliban,"
security officials said.
Kashmiri, who had lost one eye often wore
aviator-style sunglasses. He also had a missing index finger
and was notorious for his claim to have presented the severed
head of an Indian soldier to the then President Pervez
Musharraf.
Kashmiri was the chief of the 313 brigade, an
operational arm of HuJI.
Kashmiri, a resident of Kotla near Mirpur in Pakistan
occupied Kashmir (Pok), is one of the most wanted terrorist by
Indian security agencies.
The US was after him for quite some time. Recently in
a Court testimony, confessed American terrorist David Headley
had said that he had offered to US security agencies to travel
undercover to Pakistan's tribal areas to present Kashmiri with
an ornate sword that could be fitted with a homing device to
set him up for a missile attack.
British and American counter-terrorism officials
believe that he was the main coordinator of a recent terror
plot targetting Britain, France, Germany and Europe, which was
reportedly in early stages when busted by intelligence
agencies last year.
In January 2010, a US federal grand jury had indicted
him for a terrorism related offences in connection with a plot
to attack Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten following an uproar
over a blasphemous cartoon.