Ilyas Kashmiri, branded new Osama, killed in US drone attack

From Rezaul H Laskar
Islamabad, Jun 4 (PTI) Top al-Qaeda linked militant,
Ilyas Kashmiri, a key planner behind the gruesome Mumbai
terror attack, was killed in a targeted US drone strike in
Pakistan's restive northwest, a month after the slaying of
Osama bin Laden.
47-year-old Kashmiri, a former Pakistani army
commando, on whose head the US had put a price of USD five
million, was killed when a predator drone fired four missiles
late Friday night at a compound in Ghwakhwa area of South
Waziristan.
"The attack targeted Kashmiri", Pakistan officials
said. His outfit Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami confirmed his death
in faxed messages to TV channels here.
Confirming his killing, HuJI spokesperson Abu Hanzala
said in a statement that "Commander Ilyas Kashmiri was killed
in a US drone attack" and that the outfit will take revenge on
the US for this.
The killing of Kashmiri, who was widely speculated to
take over as al-Qaeda chief after the killing of bin Laden,
comes just days after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
handed over a list of five most wanted al-Qaeda and Taliban
leaders, including Kashmiri to Pakistan.
The others in the hit list inlcude al-Qaeda No 2 Ayman
al-Zawahri, al-Qaeda operations chief Atiya Abdel Rahman, as
well as Taliban leader Mullah Omar, all of whom US
intelligence officials believe are hiding in Pakistan.
Pakistan and US have also announced setting up of joint
intelligence teams to hunt down these most wanted men.
"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 recently appointed the chief of the 313
brigade, an operational arm of al-Qaeda.
Kashmiri, a resident of Mirpur in Pakistan occupied
Kashmir (Pok), is one of the most wanted terrorist by Indian
security agencies.
Kashmiri has been linked to several major terror
attacks, including the 2008 Mumbai strikes and the recent
Taliban raid on the PNS Mehran naval airbase in Karachi.
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.