From The Long War Journal:
US Predators kill 7 'militants' in Datta Khel strike
By Bill RoggioOctober 28, 2010
After a nine-day lull, the US launched its third Predator strike in two days, in the al Qaeda hub of Datta Khel in Pakistan's Taliban-controlled tribal agency of North Waziristan.
Unmanned Predators or the heavily armed Reapers fired two missiles today at a compound in the village of Ismail Khan in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan, AFP reported. Seven "militants" were reported killed and two more were wounded.
"The target was a militant compound," a Pakistani official told AFP. "Three Arabs, one Afghan and one local were killed in the attack." No senior Taliban or al Qaeda leaders were reported killed.
The Datta Khel area is administered by Hafiz Gul Bahadar, the Taliban commander for North Waziristan. Bahadar also provides shelter to top al Qaeda leaders as well as terrorists from numerous Pakistani and Central Asian terror groups.
Today's strike follows two others yesterday, in which six Taliban and al Qaeda fighters were killed in strikes in the Mir Ali and Datta Khel areas of North Waziristan.
Datta Khel serves as a command and control center for al Qaeda's top leaders. Several of al Qaeda's top commanders, including Mustafa Abu Yazid, the chief financial official and commander in Afghanistan, and Abdullah Said al Libi, the commander of al Qaeda's military, have been killed in Predator strikes in Datta Khel in the last year. [For more information on al Qaeda's presence in Datta Khel, see LWJ report, Latest US Predator strike kills 5 in al Qaeda hub in North Waziristan.]
The Predator strikes, by the numbers
The pace of the strikes since the beginning of September is unprecedented since the US began the air campaign in Pakistan in 2004. The 21 strikes in September is a record number. There have been 16 strikes in October. The previous monthly high was 11 strikes in January 2010, after the Taliban and al Qaeda executed a successful suicide attack at Combat Outpost Chapman that targeted CIA personnel who were active in gathering intelligence for the Predator campaign in Pakistan. In the bombing at COP Chapman, seven CIA officials and a Jordanian intelligence officer were killed.
The US has carried out 91 attacks inside Pakistan this year, which is more than double the number of strikes in Pakistan just two years ago. The US exceeded last year's strike total of 53 with a strike in Kurram in late August. In 2008, the US carried out 36 strikes inside Pakistan. [For up-to-date charts on the US air campaign in Pakistan, see LWJ Special Report, Charting the data for US airstrikes in Pakistan, 2004 - 2010.]
All but nine of this year's 91 strikes have taken place in North Waziristan. Of the nine strikes that have occurred outside of North Waziristan, seven took place in South Waziristan, one occurred in Khyber, and one took place in Kurram.
The US campaign in northwestern Pakistan has targeted top al Qaeda leaders, al Qaeda's external operations network, and Taliban leaders and fighters who threaten both the Afghan and Pakistani states as well as support al Qaeda's external operations. [For a list of al Qaeda and Taliban leaders killed in the US air campaign in Pakistan, see LWJ Special Report, Senior al Qaeda and Taliban leaders killed in US airstrikes in Pakistan, 2004 - 2010.]
Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/10/us_predators_kill_7_1.php#ixzz13i9TR0ot
No comments:
Post a Comment