US Predators kill 19 'militants' in 2 North Waziristan strikes
By BILL ROGGIO, February 16, 2012
Unmanned US Predator or Reaper strike aircraft killed 19 "militants," including foreign fighters, in a pair of strikes in the Miramshah and Mir Ali areas of Pakistan's Taliban-controlled tribal agency of North Waziristan today. The strikes broke a one-week-long lull in US attacks in the tribal areas.
In the first strike, the CIA-operated drones fired a pair of missiles at a compound used by "militants" in the village of Spalga near Miramshah, according to AFP. SAMAA reported that seven people were killed and seven more were wounded in the strike. The exact target of that strike has not been disclosed, and the identity of those killed is not known.
In the second strike, the drones fired missiles at a pickup truck that was traveling near the town of Mir Ali. A Pakistani intelligence official told AFP that 12 Uzbek fighters, likely from the al Qaeda-linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, were killed.
Senior terrorists are known to have sheltered in the village of Spalga in the past. The US has struck at targets in the village four other times since the end of 2009, according to data on the strikes that has been compiled by The Long War Journal.
Saleh al Somali, al Qaeda's operations chief, was killed in a US drone strike in Spalga on Dec. 9, 2009. Al Somali was a longtime al Qaeda operative who was present in Mogadishu during the infamous Black Hawk Down incident that resulted in the deaths of 19 US troops and hundreds of Somalis during an operation to detain a warlord in the capital in the fall of 1993.
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.
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US Predators kill 19 'militants' in 2 North Waziristan strikes - The Long War Journal