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US Drone strikes in Pakistan are illegal under international law.

S-2 posted a link to this on another thread. I think the readers of this thread should be aware of this research:

Drone attacks -- a survey

Thursday, March 05, 2009

Farhat Taj

The Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy, a think tank of researchers and political activists from the NWFP and FATA, conducts research, surveys and collect statistics on various issues concerning the Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorism and human security there. AIRRA research teams go deep inside Taliban- and Al-Qaeda-occupied areas of FATA to collect information. Most of the areas are not accessible to journalists.

Between last November and January AIRRA sent five teams, each made up of five researchers, to the parts of FATA that are often hit by American drones, to conduct a survey of public opinion about the attacks. The team visited Wana (South Waziristan), Ladda (South Waziristan), Miranshah (North Waziristan), Razmak (North Waziristan) and Parachinar (Kurram Agency). The teams handed out 650 structured questionnaires to people in the areas. The questionnaires were in Pashto, English and Urdu. The 550 respondents (100 declined to answer) were from professions related to business, education, health and transport. Following are the questions and the responses of the people of FATA.

-- Do you see drone attacks bringing about fear and terror in the common people? (Yes 45%, No 55%)

-- Do you think the drones are accurate in their strikes? (Yes 52%, No 48%)

-- Do you think anti-American feelings in the area increased due to drone attacks recently? (Yes 42%, No 58%)

-- Should Pakistan military carry out targeted strikes at the militant organisations? (Yes 70%, No 30%)

-- Do the militant organisations get damaged due to drone attacks? (Yes 60%, No 40%)

A group of researchers at AIRRA draw these conclusions from the survey. The popular notion outside the Pakhtun belt that a large majority of the local population supports the Taliban movement lacks substance. The notion that anti-Americanism in the region has not increased due to drone attacks is rejected. The study supports the notion that a large majority of the people in the Pakhtun belt wants to be incorporated with the state and wants to integrate with the rest of the world.

The survey also reinforces my own ethnographic interactions with people of FATA, both inside FATA and the FATA IDP’s in the NWFP. This includes people I personally met and those I am in contact with through telephone calls and emails. This includes men and women, from illiterate to people with university level education. The number is well over 2000. I asked almost all those people if they see the US drone attacks on FATA as violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty. More than two-third said they did not. Pakistan’s sovereignty, they argued, was insulted and annihilated by Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, whose territory FATA is after Pakistan lost it to them. The US is violating the sovereignty of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, not of Pakistan. Almost half the people said that the US drones attacking Islamabad or Lahore will be violation of the sovereignty of Pakistan, because these areas are not taken over by the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Many people laughed when I mentioned the word sovereignty with respect to Pakistan.

Over two-thirds of the people viewed Al-Qaeda and the Taliban as enemy number one, and wanted the Pakistani army to clear the area of the militants. A little under two-thirds want the Americans to continue the drone attack because the Pakistani army is unable or unwilling to retake the territory from the Taliban.

The people I asked about civilian causalities in the drone attacks said most of the attacks had hit their targets, which include Arab, Chechen, Uzbek and Tajik terrorists of Al-Qaeda, Pakistani Taliban (Pakhtun and Punjabis) and training camps of the terrorists. There has been some collateral damage.

The drones hit hujras or houses which the Taliban forced people to rent out to them. There is collateral damage when the family forced to rent out the property is living in an adjacent house or a portion of the property rented out.

The Taliban and Al Qaeda have unleashed a reign of terror on the people of FATA. People are afraid that the Taliban will suspect their loyalty and behead them. Thus, in order to prove their loyalty to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, they offer them to rent their houses and hujras for residential purposes.

There are people who are linked with the Taliban. Terrorists visit their houses as guests and live in the houses and hujras. The drones attacks kill women and small children of the hosts. These are innocent deaths because the women and children have no role in the men’s links with terrorists.

Other innocent victims are local people who just happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

People told me that typically what happens after every drone attack is that the Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorists cordon off the area. No one from the local population is allowed to access the site, even if there are local people killed or injured. Their relatives cry and beg the terrorists to let them go near the site. But the Taliban and Al Qaeda do not allow them. The Taliban and Al Qaeda remove everything they want from the site and then allow the locals to see the site.

The survey conducted by AIRRA and my ethnographic interactions contradict the mantra of violation of the sovereignty of Pakistan perpetuated by the armchair analysts in the media. I have been arguing on these pages that analyses of those analysts have nothing to do with the reality of the FATA people. For some reason they take FATA for granted. They feel they are at liberty to fantasise whatever they like about FATA and present to the audience as a truth. Some of those armchair analysts also have a misplaced optimism about themselves. They believe my challenge to their fantasies about FATA is because I like to give them time! I give time to the land I love--FATA and the NWFP--and to the state I am loyal to--Pakistan.

What is happening in FATA is destroying the lives and culture of the FATA people, threatening the integrity of Pakistan and world peace. Fantasies of the armchair analysts are helping no one but Al Qaeda and the Taliban--enemies of the land and culture I love, and our state. I will therefore continue to challenge the fantasies of the armchairs analysts, whenever possible.

The writer is a research fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Research, University of Oslo and a member of Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy. Email: bergen34@ yahoo.com

Drone attacks -- a survey
 
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A more recent piece by Taj noted by S-2:

ANALYSIS: Drone attacks and US reputation

Farhat Taj

In terms of the drone attacks, the US must not make any distinction between al Qaeda and the Taliban. They both have internalised a global ideology that is anti-civilisation and anti-human.

There is news coming up in the media that al Qaeda in Waziristan may run away to Yemen in the face of growing drone attacks. The people of Waziristan have expressed deep concern at this news. They do not want al Qaeda to run away from Waziristan. They want al Qaeda along with the Taliban burnt to ashes on the soil of Waziristan through relentless drone attacks. The drone attacks, they believe, are the one and only ‘cure’ for these anti-civilisation creatures and the US must robustly administer them the ‘cure’ until their existence is annihilated from the world. The people of Waziristan, including tribal leaders, women and religious people, asked me to convey in categorical terms to the US the following in my column.

One, your new drone attack strategy is brilliant, i.e. one attack closely followed by another. After the first attack the terrorists cordon off the area and none but the terrorists are allowed on the spot. Another attack at that point kills so many of them. Excellent! Keep it up!

Your drone technology has the full capacity to encircle and eliminate al Qaeda and the Taliban in Waziristan. If you fail to do so and al Qaeda manages to run away to Yemen or any other place, it could only happen in two cases: either you are highly incompetent people or you have ulterior motives.

The people who have established one of the world’s most vibrant democracies and have taken science and technology to a new zenith cannot be highly incompetent. Now the only possibility is that you have ulterior motives, which could facilitate al Qaeda’s escape from Waziristan.

In a sense the ISI of Pakistan and the CIA of the US share a sinister reputation: both use fanatic Islamists to promote strategic goals. The Taliban are the strategic assets of the ISI and al Qaeda of the CIA. Terrorised people in FATA believe that the ISI would never eliminate the Taliban for the sake of strategic depth in Afghanistan and countless people across the Muslim world believe that al Qaeda is a CIA invention to trigger chaos in Muslim lands and hence create excuses for the US to control natural resources such as oil and gas in those lands. There is also a perception in FATA and the rest of Pakistan that the US is especially going soft on Islamists from the restive Muslim areas of China. Those Islamists would be used to destabilise China, the emerging rival to the US in world politics.

Here in Waziristan the US has a good opportunity to prove to the Muslim world that it is indeed serious in eliminating al Qaeda. The escape of al Qaeda from Waziristan to Yemen or any other Muslim country would communicate the message that the US is an imperial power that just ‘relocates’ its strategic assets from one Muslim society to another only to destabilise them and hence paves the way for US military intervention in those areas.

In terms of the drone attacks, the US must not make any distinction between al Qaeda and the Taliban. They both have internalised a global ideology that is anti-civilisation and anti-human. They will keep coming back to strike at civilisations — Islamic, Western, Confucian or Indian. The sooner the world gets rid of them the better.

This was the view of the people of Waziristan. I would now draw the attention of the US to the Peshawar Declaration, a joint statement of political parties, civil society organisations, businessmen, doctors, lawyers, teachers, students, labourers and intellectuals, following a conference on December 12-13, 2009, in Peshawar. The declaration notes that if the people of the war-affected areas are satisfied with any counter-militancy strategy; it is drone attacks that they support the most. Some people in Waziristan compare drones with the Quran’s Ababeels — the holy sparrows sent by God to avenge Abraham, the intended conqueror of the Khana Kaaba. Which other Muslim society has likened anything from the US military with a Quranic symbol? Only the Pakhtuns did that so publicly in this time of rising anti-Americanism across the Muslim world! What more does the US want from a Muslim society? Now please go ahead and do the needful as indicated by the people of Waziristan.

The overpowered people of Waziristan are angry. They believe no one in their entire history has inflicted so much insult on them as al Qaeda. In our native land, they say, al Qaeda has killed so many of us. Anyone in the world who has gone mad in the name of religion has come to occupy our land. They are Arabs, Central Asians, Caucasians and Africans. They are people with black, brown, blue and green eyes. They are brown, black and white. They all have chosen our land for their sinister designs against all civilisations. No self-respecting people, they argue, can accept this situation.

The ball is now in the US’s court. Their action or inaction against the terrorists in Waziristan would either confirm their image in the Muslim world as an imperial power destabilising Muslim societies in the name of the war on terror or would challenge that image, at least in FATA and the NWFP, the Muslim society on the frontline of the war on terror. The people of Waziristan hope the US challenges that image through the elimination of all terrorists — al Qaeda or the Taliban — in Waziristan.

The writer is a research fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Research, University of Oslo, and a member of Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy. She can be reached at bergen34@yahoo.co

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan
 
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The people of Waziristan have expressed deep concern at this news. They do not want al Qaeda to run away from Waziristan. They want al Qaeda along with the Taliban burnt to ashes on the soil of Waziristan through relentless drone attacks.
That comes across as more of an emotional piece reflecting the wishes/biases of the author.

I thought her earlier work was far better in conveying her POV, and coming across as credible, though some military officials did write to The News contesting her accounts in those articles, specifically related to PA actions.
 
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US hits Haqqani Network in North Waziristan, kills 5

By Bill Roggio, LWJ, February 24, 2010 7:26 AM

The US killed five terrorists while targeting the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani Network in an airstrike in Pakistan’s Taliban-controlled tribal agency of North Waziristan.

Unmanned US strike aircraft, the Predators or Reapers operating from secret bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan, fired three missiles at "a fortress-like" Haqqani Network compound and a vehicle in the village of Dargi Mandi just outside the main town of Miramshah.

Five Haqqani Network fighters were reported killed and several more were wounded, according to a report at Dawn. Several others were wounded. No senior leaders have been reported killed at this time. Haqqani Network fighters surrounded the compound.

Today's attack is the sixth this month and the seventeenth this year. All 17 of the strikes have taken place in North Waziristan. The US carried out 53 strikes in 2009 and 36 in 2008.

Read more: US hits Haqqani Network in North Waziristan, kills 5 - The Long War Journal
 
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Some additional info on the last strike:

Drone Attack Reported in Pakistan

By PIR ZUBAIR SHAH
Published: February 24, 2010

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — At least eight militants were killed in the North Waziristan region on Wednesday by three missiles fired from an American drone, according to a Pakistani security official and residents.

The missiles struck a compound used by local and foreign militants in the Darga Mandi area of North Waziristan, residents and the security official said. Three foreign fighters were killed, along with local militants, the official said. Five militants were wounded, the official said.

Drone Attack Reported in Pakistan - NYTimes.com
 
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The people of Waziristan have expressed deep concern at this news. They do not want al Qaeda to run away from Waziristan. They want al Qaeda along with the Taliban burnt to ashes on the soil of Waziristan through relentless drone attacks
I note that this seems to be in direct opposition to official Pakistani policy. As one TV documentary noted, during the recent P.A. offensives, once the Taliban have been driven out of the area the PA and locals destroy the home of the insurgents, the homes of their relatives, and the homes of anybody thought to have sheltered them. So most of the Talibs have fled, along with a slew of refugees/potential recruits, yes?
 
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The writer has made clear repeatedly we are her salvation by our efforts. She has my sympathies but she's not completely credible either. Claiming there's been no civilian casualties doesn't pass my smell test and I'm predisposed to see accuracy and precision in these strikes. Nontheless distinction, necessity, and proportionality have all been challenges at some point for one strike or another. Clearly wives and children of militants have been victims.

Too, she's an advocate for women's rights in a region desperate for such, but that clouds her perspectives as well.

I'm certain she's in the IDP camps. She's told me as much directly. I'm certain that many IDPs hold disdain for all those elements on either side visibly contributing to their misery. Her advocacy gets the best of her though when suggesting that her benefactor (America) immediately becomes an enemy should we allow even one of those nasty A.Q. types to slip away. Here's our e-mail conversation on this issue-

S-2: OTOH, I noticed this-

[Taj op-ed]"Now the only possibility is that you have ulterior motives, which could facilitate al Qaeda’s escape from Waziristan..."

Sadly, it is not the only possibility if only because you ascribe an omnipotence to America that we simply don't possess. I believe that my government is doing as much as it possibly can to interdict Al Qaeda given the current political climate both in Pakistan and throughout Islam. I urge you to convey to the people of FATA that the American government cannot assure the 100% eradication of this threat. It is global already regardless of whether Al Qaeda is able to successfully migrate elsewhere or is destroyed inside FATA. Three separate American presidential administrations of both major parties reaching back to the Clinton administration have been engaged in doing so amidst differing geo-political conditions. It is important to remember the attacks upon our country at the World Trade Center in 1994, well before 9/11 as well as the attacks upon our embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam along with the strike upon the USS Cole to highlight the length of time which has transpired in which we've been engaged with these enemies of mankind.

We are incompetent, if perfection defines competency. There continues to exist an incomplete understanding of the depth of penetration that Al Qaeda has achieved both within Pakistan as well as globally. As such, perfectly thorough targeting of these enemies within FATA is impossible to achieve. We are doing our best to eliminate this scourge despite very incomplete assistance from the various Pakistani governments since 2001. Had we our way, Pakistan would have ejected Omar, Osama Bin Laden, Haqqani, and Hekmatyar when they retreated into Pakistan following their defeat in Afghanistan in late 2001. This didn't happen for a variety of now obvious geo-strategic reasons relating to Pakistan's continued interference in Afghan internal affaris through its pursuit of strategic depth/influence.

Al Qaeda's leaders may yet flee Pakistan's tribal areas. Were I Zawahiri or Bin Laden I would attempt to do so but I believe Bin Laden is quite ill. I also believe that Al Qaeda believes that their best chance of acquiring a nuclear weapon or fissionable material lies in the continuing de-stabilization and radicalization of the Pakistani state. This, by itself, might mitigate some of your concerns about an enmasse migration.

We are also not, as far as I can ascertain, engaged in promoting uzbek islamic terror ambitions and I would point to our destruction of both Juma Namangani in 2001 and his associate Tohir Yuldashev last August 29, 2009 to reinforce this point. As for support of both Jundallah and the Sinkiang muslim uighar movements, neither element possess sufficient traction or credibility as legitimate nationalist movements to inspire such support by the American government. Neither represent legitimate voices of their peoples.

That should be separated, however, from our concerns about both the uighar peoples and those of Balochistan and their legitimate aspirations within the chinese and Pakistani polity.



Taj: "You are right. The Americans, in fact no humans are omnipotence. But we know people who are determined never let golden opportunities go away. Here is Waziristan the US has a golden opportunity i.e. the Muslim society in the area is supporting the US actions against the dominant public opinion in Pakistan and across the Muslim world. My Op-Ed got editorially killed a bit. I had another message from the people of Waziristan to the US, which the editor did not allow in the published piece: the US must hit each and every one of the funeral ceremonies of Al-Qaida and Taliban. You kill so many of them in one attack when they are gathered together- funeral ceremonies are one of such occasions. People of Waziristan referred to the drone attack on the funeral ceremony of KHwaz Wali, the right hand man of Baitullah Mehsud. Khwaz Wali closely coordinated with the Arabs and other alien militants. This attacks happened a few months before the one that killed Baitullah.

The attack on the KHwaz Wali funeral ceremony killed so many of the Taliban and Al-Qaida, including Bilal, an important Taliban commander. People of Waziridstan wonder why the US has stopped attacking funeral ceremonies any more. If by any chance you come in contact with the US authorities who deal with the drones, kindly tell them that people of Waziristan say that funeral ceremonies are one of those occasions when so many of the monsters are in one spot and an attack on the spot would kill so and so people want relentless attacks and each and every funeral ceremonies!

The Americans have badly failed in public diplomacy across the Muslim world as can be seen in the rising anti-Americanism there. One reason, of course of this is that there is one-sided anti-US propaganda every single day. HUman beings are human being- they get affected with one sided propaganda, especially when there is no systematic US efforts to counter the propaganda- I do not see any in Pakistan. By chance there is an opportunity in Waziristan where the Muslim society is looking favorably at the US. If the US disappoints the people of Waziristan (for whatever reason, human limitations or whatever) it wont help US anything in terms of anti-Americanism in the Muslim world.

I am getting so many emails from Muslim in different countries in response to my this Op-Ed- they say that I have rightly pointed out the root cause of the security problem in the Muslim world i.e. Al-Qaida is strategic asset of the US, which it is relating from one Muslim society to another. The perception would be greatly challenged if people of Waziristan argue differently following the US elimination of Al-Qaida and Taliban on their soil.

By eliminating of Al-Qaida and Taliban, they mean, destroy their training camps, headquarters, their weapons storages, their vehicles including Haqni's terror sectariat in North Waziristan, and kill their top and middle level leaders, preferably along with all adult male heirs of Al-Qaid and Taliban, both Pakhtun ad Punjabi...."


Thanks.:usflag:
 
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I agree with some of what Taj has to say, but she is way too one-sided. It's not nearly as black and white in Waziristan where drone attacks are being celebrated.
 
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Fedayeen-i-Islam commander thought killed in US airstrike

By Bill Roggio, LWJ, February 25, 2010 12:30 PM

A top terrorist leader wanted by the US for attacking the consulate in Karachi in 2002 is thought to have been killed during an airstrike in North Waziristan.

Qari Mohammad Zafar, the operational commander of the Fedayeen-i-Islam, is reported to have been killed in a US airstrike in the village of Danda Darpa Khel, Pakistani officials told Dawn. The US last hit the village on Feb. 18, and killed Mohammed Haqqani, a military commander in the Haqqani Network.

US intelligence officials contacted by The Long War Journal would not confirm his death but said it was “possible” he was killed.

“We’ve received some information that may verify the reports but we cannot be certain,” an official said. “It is possible but we cannot confirm. We’d like to check him off our list as he is dangerous.”

Zafar is wanted by the US government for his involvement in the Karachi Consulate bombing in 2002, which resulted in the death of three Pakistanis and a consular official. "Zafar is suspected of being a key figure involved with this attack," according to the Rewards for Justice website page. A $5 million reward has been offered for information leading the capture of Zafar.

Zafar is a senior leader of the Fedayeen-e-Islam, an alliance between the Pakistani Taliban, the anti-Shia Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and Jaish-e-Mohammed [see LWJ report, “Terror alliance takes credit for Peshawar hotel assault”]. The group was based in the Mehsud tribal areas in South Waziristan but fled the region after the Pakistani military began an offensive there in October 2009.

Zafar is also closely linked to Qari Saifullah Akhtar, the leader of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-i-Islami. Zafar and Akhtar are thought to have been the main leaders of the September 2008 suicide attack on the Marriott hotel in Islamabad.

Read more: Fedayeen-i-Islam commander thought killed in US airstrike - The Long War Journal
 
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TS:

Roggio typically links to the news sites that he bases his commentary on.

I would prefer if you post the original source instead of linking back to Roggio's blog.

Thanks.
 
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TS:

Roggio typically links to the news sites that he bases his commentary on.

I would prefer if you post the original source instead of linking back to Roggio's blog.

Thanks.

OK. I use the LWJ because he is timely in following the drone strikes. I usually only need to check his site to find the latest news. In the future I will try to post from the sources he is picking up. Although, to be honest, I think that you are taking too much offense at my using him as a source. If you notice I don't post his full text in most cases. I only post the parts that are factual and not editorial. Nonetheless, I don't want to make the source of the info the issue, as it clearly is with you. I am only trying to keep the "Missile Strikes in FATA" thread updated with the latest facts.
 
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Xinjiang fighter 'killed by drone'

The leader of a Chinese separatist movement, believed to have links with al-Qaeda, has been killed in a US missile strike, Pakistani and Taliban officials have said.

Abdul Haq al-Turkistani was apparently killed in an American drone attack in Pakistan's North Waziristan province, close to the border with Afghanistan.

He was leader of the Turkistani Islamic Party, which has been designated as a terrorist group by the US government.

Al-Turkistani had accused Chinese authorities of committing "barbaric massacres" of Muslims in China's western Xinjiang region, and has called for attacks on Chinese people.

The Chinese foreign ministry said it is aware of al-Turkistani's reported death, but cannot confirm it.

Al Jazeera's Melissa Chan, reporting from Beijing said that if Al-Turkistani's death is confirmed, it would be welcomed by Chinese authorities.

In August 2009, al-Turkistani appeared in a video on a website threatening to attack Chinese interests around the world to avenge the deaths of Muslim Uighurs in clashes with the ethnic Han Chinese in Xinjiang earlier that year.

The fighting left at least 200 people dead and more than 1,600 wounded, most of them Uighurs.

Hundreds of fighters in conflict with governments in many central Asian nations have taken refuge in Pakistan's tribal region, where al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters are said to protect them.

The US has in recent months intensified drone strikes in Pakistan's seven tribal districts, killing dozens of al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters, along with civilian casualties.

Al Jazeera English - Asia-Pacific - Xinjiang fighter 'killed by drone'
 
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Pakistani Taliban confirm death of Qari Zafar

Tuesday, 02 Mar, 2010

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani Taliban confirmed Tuesday that a senior commander wanted in the deadly 2006 bombing of the US consulate in Karachi was killed in a suspected American missile strike in northwestern Pakistan.

Mohammed Qari Zafar's death, which was reported earlier by Pakistani intelligence officials, marks the latest success from Washington's covert CIA-run drone program in Pakistan. The unmanned aircraft have carried out more than 100 missile strikes near the Afghan border since 2004, killing several senior Taliban and al-Qaida leaders.

The Taliban described Zafar as a martyr in a statement faxed to local journalists and pledged to avenge his death. It is uncommon for the Taliban to confirm the death of one of its members in a missile strike.

''The mujahideen will soon take revenge against the Pakistani government for his killing anywhere in the country,'' said the statement.

Pakistani officials routinely protest the drone strikes as violations of the country's sovereignty. But US officials, who refuse to speak publicly about the secret program, say privately that the Pakistani government supports the effort.

Pakistani intelligence officials said last week that Zafar was killed Wednesday along with 13 other insurgents when three missiles struck a compound and a vehicle in the Dargah Mandi area of the North Waziristan tribal region. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the media.

Zafar, who was a senior member of the banned al-Qaida-linked militant group Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, orchestrated the March 2006 suicide car bombing of the US consulate in Karachi, killing US diplomat David Foy and three Pakistanis. He was also believed to be behind the September 2008 truck bomb blast at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad that killed 54 people. The US had posted a $5 million dollar reward for information leading to his capture.

DAWN.COM | Pakistan | Pakistani Taliban confirm death of Qari Zafar
 
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