U.S. Says Haqqani Commander Killed in Pakistan

إقرأ هذا الخبر بالعربية W460

The United States said Thursday the most senior leader of the extremist Haqqani group yet "taken off the battlefield" had been killed in a lawless tribal area of Pakistan.

"It's been confirmed that Janbaz Zadran, aka Jamil, was killed earlier today in North Waziristan, Pakistan," said a senior US official, revealing the death of the latest target of the secret U.S. anti-terror war.

"Janbaz played a central role in helping the Haqqani network attack U.S. and coalition targets in Kabul and southeastern Afghanistan.

"His death in Miram Shah makes him the most senior Haqqani leader in Pakistan to be taken off the battlefield," the official said.

The official did not detail the circumstances in which Janbaz was killed, but a number of extremists have recently died in a rash of US drone strikes in tribal Pakistan and Yemen.

Washington does not give public details about drone missions.

Earlier, Pakistani security officials said a man identified as Jamil Haqqani, an important Afghan commander of the Haqqani network had been killed, in a strike by two unmanned aircraft in the same area.

A U.S. official said the two men were not the same person, but it was impossible to verify undisclosed intelligence information about the attack.

According to a Pakistani version of the events, an unmanned aircraft fired two missiles at a compound in Dandey Darpakhel village, about seven kilometers (four miles) north of Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan tribal district.

The United States blames the Haqqanis for fuelling the 10-year insurgency in Afghanistan; attacking US-led NATO troops and working to destabilize the Western-backed government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Washington last month significantly stepped up demands on Islamabad to take action against the network and cut alleged ties to the group.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said this week the United States is waging "war" in Pakistan against militants, referring to the covert CIA campaign that the U.S. government declines to discuss publicly.

Speaking at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, the former CIA director said the relationship between Washington and ally Islamabad was "complicated".

"And admittedly, there are a lot of reasons for that. We are fighting a war in their country," Panetta said.

Around 30 U.S. drone strikes have been reported in Pakistan since Navy SEALs found and killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden near the country's top military academy in Abbottabad, close to the capital, on May 2.

Last month, the outgoing top U.S. military officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, called the Haqqani network a "veritable arm" of Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency and accused Pakistan of supporting attacks on U.S. targets in Afghanistan.

Islamabad officially denies any support for Haqqani activities, but has nurtured Pashtun warlords for decades as a way of influencing events across the border and offsetting the might of arch-rival India.

Thursday's raid came two weeks after the death of U.S.-born Yemeni militant Anwar al-Awlaqi in a U.S. air strike in Yemen.

Comments 0