The US killed 17 suspected "militants" in a strike in an area of
the Taliban-controlled tribal agency of North Waziristan that is known
to host la Qaeda's top leaders.
The remotely piloted Predators or the more heavily armed Reapers
fired several missiles at a compound in the Datta Khel area of North
Waziristan,
according to Retuers. Pakistani officials
told Dawn that 17 people, all "suspected militants," were killed in the strike.
The target of today's strike has not been disclosed. No senior al
Qaeda or Taliban leaders have been reported killed in the strike.
The Datta Khel area is administered by Hafiz Gul Bahadar, the Taliban
commander for North Waziristan. Bahadar provides shelter to top al
Qaeda leaders as well as terrorists from numerous Pakistani and Central
Asian terror groups.
Datta Khel is a known hub of Taliban, Haqqani Network, and al Qaeda
activity. While Bahadar administers the region, the Haqqani Network, al
Qaeda, and allied Central Asian jihadi groups are also based in the
area. The Lashkar al Zil, al Qaeda's Shadow Army, is known to have a
command center in Datta Khel.
Datta Khel serves as a command and control center for al Qaeda's top
leaders, and some of them have been targeted and killed there. A strike
in Datta Khel on Dec. 17, 2009,
targeted Sheikh Saeed al Saudi,
Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law and a member of al Qaeda's Shura
Majlis, or executive council. Al Saudi is thought to have survived the
strike, but Abdullah Said al Libi, the commander of the Shadow Army, and
Zuhaib al Zahibi, a general in the Shadow Army,
were both killed in the attack.
But the most significant attack in Datta Khel took place on May 21, 2010, and resulted
in the death of Mustafa Abu Yazid, a longtime al Qaeda leader and close confidant of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri.
Yazid served as the leader of al Qaeda in Afghanistan and the wider
Khorasan, a region that encompasses portions of Pakistan, Iran, and
several Central Asian states. More importantly, Yazid was al Qaeda's top
financier, which put him in charge of the terror group's purse strings.
He served on al Qaeda's Shura Majlis, or top decision-making council.
Yazid also was closely allied with the Taliban and advocated the program
of embedding small al Qaeda teams with Taliban forces in Afghanistan, a
practice well-established in the country now.
Despite the known presence of al Qaeda and other foreign terrorist
organizations in North Waziristan, and requests by the US that action be
taken against these groups, the Pakistani military has indicated that
it has no plans to take on Bahadar or the Haqqani Network, the other
major Taliban group based there. Bahadar and the Haqqanis are considered
"good Taliban" by the Pakistani military establishment as they do not
carry out attacks inside Pakistan. Yet Bahadar, the Haqqanis, and other
Taliban groups openly carry out attacks in Afghanistan.
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