Sunday, August 26, 2012 5:28:54 AM
Taliban deny reports of Haqqani leader death
Spokesman for Taliban rejects claims by Pakistan that Badruddin Haqqani was killed in North Waziristan by drone strike.
Last Modified: 26 Aug 2012 07:47
The operational commander of the Haqqani Network, the group behind some of the most high profile attacks in Afghanistan, may have been killed in a US drone strike, Pakistani intelligence sources have said.
Pakistani officials said on Saturday that Badruddin Haqqani, the son of Afghan warlord Jalauddin Haqqani who is also believed to handle the network's business and smuggling operations, may have been killed in the North Waziristan region bordering Afghanistan.
"Our informers have told us that he has been killed in the drone attack on the 21st but we cannot confirm it," said one of the Pakistani intelligence officials.
A Taliban spokesman in Afghanistan, however, has rejected the reports.
Zabiullah Mujahid said in an email sent to reporters late on Saturday that Badruddin Haqqani is "alive and healthy'' in Afghanistan.
If Badruddin's death is confirmed, it could deal a major blow to the Haqqani group, believed to be the group that introduced the practice of suicide bombing to Afghanistan, where it is allied with the Taliban.
"We are 90 per cent sure that he was in the same house which was attacked with a drone on Tuesday," another Pakistani intelligence official said.
Sources close to the Haqqani Network also said Badruddin was believed to be in the house, hit by a drone strike as
fighters were planting explosives in a vehicle meant to be used for an attack on NATO forces in Afghanistan.
"The drone fired two missiles on the house last Tuesday and killed 25 people, most of them members of the Haqqani family," one of the sources said.
However, one of Badruddin's relatives said he was alive and busy with his "jihad activities".
"Such claims are baseless," the relative told the Reuters news agency.
Taliban leader
The Pakistani Taliban have already named a replacement for Dadullah
[EPA]
If confirmed, it would be the second high-profile death in a drone strike in Pakistan this week.
Maulvi Dadullah, a key commander of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) the Pakistani branch of the Taliban, was killed on Friday evening in NATO air strikes in Afghanistan's eastern province of Kunar, NATO and Afghan officials said.
"There were two separate air strikes in Kunar [province] yesterday. A total of 12 insurgents were killed, six in each air strike," a NATO spokesman told the AFP news agency on Saturday.
The commander, along with his deputy, Shakir, and 10 others believed to be fighters, were killed in the attack that wounded seven others, Major General Ewaz Mohammad Naziri, told the Pajhwok news service in Afghanistan.
Pakistani Taliban officials, as well as Pakistani intelligence officials said Dadullah had been killed in a house in eastern Kunar province.
A spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, Ahsanullah Ahsan, said Dadullah was killed in a drone strike in Kunar. He said Maulana Abu Bakar has been named as the new chief of the Bajur region.
Sayed Rahman, police chief of Kunar's Shigal district, where the attacks took place, said most of the dead were from neighbouring Pakistan.
Al Jazeera's Jennifer Glasse, reporting from Kabul, said fighters on either side often take advantage of the porous border between the neighbouring nations.
Referring to Pakistani groups such as the TTP, our correspondent said "when the Pakistani military put pressure on them, they cross over into Afghanistan, and vice versa".
Previous rumours
Rahman also confirmed Dadullah's death, saying "Commander Dadullah, the top Taliban commander in Bajaur agency of
Pakistan, is also among the dead".
Although rumours of his death have circulated before, Glasse said "the fact that local officials are saying it's true, generally adds more credence" to the claims of Dadullah's death in an area that is often hard to gain access to.
A NATO statement describes Dadullah, also known as Jamal, as being responsible for "the movement of fighters and weapons, as well as attacks against Afghan and coalition forces".
Dadullah, in his forties, replaced Maulvi Faqir Mohammad last year after Mohammad told the media that the Taliban were holding peace talks with the government.
The group then replaced Mohammad with Dadullah to undercut the secret negotiations, Taliban commanders say.
Our correspondent said Dadullah's death would be a blow to the TTP "an organisation that has dogged Pakistan for a long time" now.
Last week, two dozen people, believed to be Taliban fighters, were killed in NATO air strikes in Chapa Dara district of Kunar as they gathered for a public execution.
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
Copyright 2012 Al Jazeera
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2012/08/20128256313859267.html
===
Pakistani Militant Leader Dies in Airstrike, NATO Says
Mullah Dadullah, right, in September 2011. His death is expected to have an impact on the fighting in the Bajaur tribal agency.
Reuters
A suspected militant, wounded in the drone strike that killed Mullah Dadullah, at a hospital on Friday in Kunar Province.
Meer Afzal/European Pressphoto Agency
By DECLAN WALSH
Published: August 25, 2012
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — NATO [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/north_atlantic_treaty_organization/index.html ] forces said on Saturday that they had killed a senior Pakistani Taliban commander in an airstrike in Afghanistan, highlighting the increasingly complicated nature of the fight against Islamist militants along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Mullah Dadullah, who led the Pakistani Taliban in the Bajaur tribal agency, was killed late Friday in a strike on a compound across the border in the Afghan province of Kunar, NATO and Pakistani intelligence officials said.
The Kunar police chief, Gen. Elwaz Mohammad Naziri, said 12 other militants, including Mullah Dadullah’s deputy, were also killed.
The death of Mullah Dadullah, a former prayer leader who rose through the Taliban ranks to become a commander, will have an impact on the fighting in Bajaur, where the Pakistani Army has been battling the Pakistani Taliban since 2008.
But it may also offer an opportunity for a fresh turn in the relations among NATO, Pakistani and Afghan forces along the porous border, which have been marred by acrid recriminations in recent months.
Pakistani officials have publicly accused NATO of failing to stop Taliban fighters sheltering in the Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nuristan, from which American forces have largely withdrawn, from carrying out attacks inside Pakistan.
The protests reached a crescendo in June after a Taliban ambush killed 13 Pakistani soldiers, 7 of whom were beheaded. Some Pakistani officials have gone as far as to accuse NATO and Afghan forces of secretly supporting the insurgents.
The Afghan government has replied by saying that Pakistan’s military regularly fires artillery salvos across the border into remote Afghan villages, killing scores of civilians. Tensions between border police on both sides have flared into gunfire several times in the last month.
NATO officials, meanwhile, note that Pakistan has failed to crack down on much larger Afghan Taliban sanctuaries inside its own territory — particularly in North Waziristan, farther west along the border, where the Haqqani network holds sway.
There, the campaign against the Taliban is being led by Central Intelligence Agency drone strikes, which have attacked targets in North Waziristan on four of the last eight days. Senior American officials say one of the strikes may have killed Badruddin Haqqani, the operational leader of the Haqqani network.
Now, Mullah Dadullah has become the most senior Pakistani Taliban commander to be killed by NATO in Afghanistan.
In Kabul, the Afghan capital, Gen. John R. Allen, the top commander of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, described Mullah Dadullah as “an extremely dangerous militant” and said his death was part of a broader attempt at greater cross-border cooperation with Pakistan.
“We also have long believed that close cooperation with our Pakistani partners is critical in combating the menace of terrorism, and dealing with this target furthers that objective,” General Allen said in a statement.
NATO said Mullah Dadullah was important on the Afghan battlefield, too. In another statement, the military alliance said he “was responsible for the movement of fighters and weapons, as well as attacks on Afghan and coalition forces.”
A spokesman for Pakistan’s military was not immediately available for comment. But Asad Munir, a retired Pakistan military brigadier and former intelligence chief in Peshawar, said Mullah Dadullah’s killing was a “very calculated move that is likely to be appreciated by our army.”
“Their complaint has been that American and Afghan forces are not targeting the Pakistani Taliban,” he said. “This is a good sign.”
Mullah Dadullah, also the name of an Afghan commander of the Taliban [ http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/14/world/asia/14afghan.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all ] who was killed in 2007, was the nom de guerre of Jamal Said, a prayer leader from the village of Damadola, in Bajaur. He rose through the ranks of the Pakistan Taliban and in 2008, headed its vice and virtue department, enforcing strict edicts based on a narrow interpretation of Islamic texts.
He became a commander in Bajaur after the Taliban leadership fired his predecessor, Maulvi Faqir Muhammad, for engaging in unauthorized peace talks with the Pakistani government.
Mr. Muhammad now leads a rival Taliban faction, which is also based in Afghanistan and has been attacking Pakistani border posts. His troops have clashed with those of Mullah Dadullah in the past month, a local reporter from Bajaur said by telephone.
Graham Bowley contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, Ismail Khan from Peshawar, Pakistan, and an employee of The New York Times from Kunar Province, Afghanistan.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/world/asia/nato-says-it-killed-a-pakistani-militant-in-afghanistan.html
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Spokesman for Taliban rejects claims by Pakistan that Badruddin Haqqani was killed in North Waziristan by drone strike.
Last Modified: 26 Aug 2012 07:47
The operational commander of the Haqqani Network, the group behind some of the most high profile attacks in Afghanistan, may have been killed in a US drone strike, Pakistani intelligence sources have said.
Pakistani officials said on Saturday that Badruddin Haqqani, the son of Afghan warlord Jalauddin Haqqani who is also believed to handle the network's business and smuggling operations, may have been killed in the North Waziristan region bordering Afghanistan.
"Our informers have told us that he has been killed in the drone attack on the 21st but we cannot confirm it," said one of the Pakistani intelligence officials.
A Taliban spokesman in Afghanistan, however, has rejected the reports.
Zabiullah Mujahid said in an email sent to reporters late on Saturday that Badruddin Haqqani is "alive and healthy'' in Afghanistan.
If Badruddin's death is confirmed, it could deal a major blow to the Haqqani group, believed to be the group that introduced the practice of suicide bombing to Afghanistan, where it is allied with the Taliban.
"We are 90 per cent sure that he was in the same house which was attacked with a drone on Tuesday," another Pakistani intelligence official said.
Sources close to the Haqqani Network also said Badruddin was believed to be in the house, hit by a drone strike as
fighters were planting explosives in a vehicle meant to be used for an attack on NATO forces in Afghanistan.
"The drone fired two missiles on the house last Tuesday and killed 25 people, most of them members of the Haqqani family," one of the sources said.
However, one of Badruddin's relatives said he was alive and busy with his "jihad activities".
"Such claims are baseless," the relative told the Reuters news agency.
Taliban leader
The Pakistani Taliban have already named a replacement for Dadullah
[EPA]
If confirmed, it would be the second high-profile death in a drone strike in Pakistan this week.
Maulvi Dadullah, a key commander of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) the Pakistani branch of the Taliban, was killed on Friday evening in NATO air strikes in Afghanistan's eastern province of Kunar, NATO and Afghan officials said.
"There were two separate air strikes in Kunar [province] yesterday. A total of 12 insurgents were killed, six in each air strike," a NATO spokesman told the AFP news agency on Saturday.
The commander, along with his deputy, Shakir, and 10 others believed to be fighters, were killed in the attack that wounded seven others, Major General Ewaz Mohammad Naziri, told the Pajhwok news service in Afghanistan.
Pakistani Taliban officials, as well as Pakistani intelligence officials said Dadullah had been killed in a house in eastern Kunar province.
A spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, Ahsanullah Ahsan, said Dadullah was killed in a drone strike in Kunar. He said Maulana Abu Bakar has been named as the new chief of the Bajur region.
Sayed Rahman, police chief of Kunar's Shigal district, where the attacks took place, said most of the dead were from neighbouring Pakistan.
Al Jazeera's Jennifer Glasse, reporting from Kabul, said fighters on either side often take advantage of the porous border between the neighbouring nations.
Referring to Pakistani groups such as the TTP, our correspondent said "when the Pakistani military put pressure on them, they cross over into Afghanistan, and vice versa".
Previous rumours
Rahman also confirmed Dadullah's death, saying "Commander Dadullah, the top Taliban commander in Bajaur agency of
Pakistan, is also among the dead".
Although rumours of his death have circulated before, Glasse said "the fact that local officials are saying it's true, generally adds more credence" to the claims of Dadullah's death in an area that is often hard to gain access to.
A NATO statement describes Dadullah, also known as Jamal, as being responsible for "the movement of fighters and weapons, as well as attacks against Afghan and coalition forces".
Dadullah, in his forties, replaced Maulvi Faqir Mohammad last year after Mohammad told the media that the Taliban were holding peace talks with the government.
The group then replaced Mohammad with Dadullah to undercut the secret negotiations, Taliban commanders say.
Our correspondent said Dadullah's death would be a blow to the TTP "an organisation that has dogged Pakistan for a long time" now.
Last week, two dozen people, believed to be Taliban fighters, were killed in NATO air strikes in Chapa Dara district of Kunar as they gathered for a public execution.
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
Copyright 2012 Al Jazeera
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2012/08/20128256313859267.html
===
Pakistani Militant Leader Dies in Airstrike, NATO Says
Mullah Dadullah, right, in September 2011. His death is expected to have an impact on the fighting in the Bajaur tribal agency.
Reuters
A suspected militant, wounded in the drone strike that killed Mullah Dadullah, at a hospital on Friday in Kunar Province.
Meer Afzal/European Pressphoto Agency
By DECLAN WALSH
Published: August 25, 2012
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — NATO [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/north_atlantic_treaty_organization/index.html ] forces said on Saturday that they had killed a senior Pakistani Taliban commander in an airstrike in Afghanistan, highlighting the increasingly complicated nature of the fight against Islamist militants along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Mullah Dadullah, who led the Pakistani Taliban in the Bajaur tribal agency, was killed late Friday in a strike on a compound across the border in the Afghan province of Kunar, NATO and Pakistani intelligence officials said.
The Kunar police chief, Gen. Elwaz Mohammad Naziri, said 12 other militants, including Mullah Dadullah’s deputy, were also killed.
The death of Mullah Dadullah, a former prayer leader who rose through the Taliban ranks to become a commander, will have an impact on the fighting in Bajaur, where the Pakistani Army has been battling the Pakistani Taliban since 2008.
But it may also offer an opportunity for a fresh turn in the relations among NATO, Pakistani and Afghan forces along the porous border, which have been marred by acrid recriminations in recent months.
Pakistani officials have publicly accused NATO of failing to stop Taliban fighters sheltering in the Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nuristan, from which American forces have largely withdrawn, from carrying out attacks inside Pakistan.
The protests reached a crescendo in June after a Taliban ambush killed 13 Pakistani soldiers, 7 of whom were beheaded. Some Pakistani officials have gone as far as to accuse NATO and Afghan forces of secretly supporting the insurgents.
The Afghan government has replied by saying that Pakistan’s military regularly fires artillery salvos across the border into remote Afghan villages, killing scores of civilians. Tensions between border police on both sides have flared into gunfire several times in the last month.
NATO officials, meanwhile, note that Pakistan has failed to crack down on much larger Afghan Taliban sanctuaries inside its own territory — particularly in North Waziristan, farther west along the border, where the Haqqani network holds sway.
There, the campaign against the Taliban is being led by Central Intelligence Agency drone strikes, which have attacked targets in North Waziristan on four of the last eight days. Senior American officials say one of the strikes may have killed Badruddin Haqqani, the operational leader of the Haqqani network.
Now, Mullah Dadullah has become the most senior Pakistani Taliban commander to be killed by NATO in Afghanistan.
In Kabul, the Afghan capital, Gen. John R. Allen, the top commander of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, described Mullah Dadullah as “an extremely dangerous militant” and said his death was part of a broader attempt at greater cross-border cooperation with Pakistan.
“We also have long believed that close cooperation with our Pakistani partners is critical in combating the menace of terrorism, and dealing with this target furthers that objective,” General Allen said in a statement.
NATO said Mullah Dadullah was important on the Afghan battlefield, too. In another statement, the military alliance said he “was responsible for the movement of fighters and weapons, as well as attacks on Afghan and coalition forces.”
A spokesman for Pakistan’s military was not immediately available for comment. But Asad Munir, a retired Pakistan military brigadier and former intelligence chief in Peshawar, said Mullah Dadullah’s killing was a “very calculated move that is likely to be appreciated by our army.”
“Their complaint has been that American and Afghan forces are not targeting the Pakistani Taliban,” he said. “This is a good sign.”
Mullah Dadullah, also the name of an Afghan commander of the Taliban [ http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/14/world/asia/14afghan.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all ] who was killed in 2007, was the nom de guerre of Jamal Said, a prayer leader from the village of Damadola, in Bajaur. He rose through the ranks of the Pakistan Taliban and in 2008, headed its vice and virtue department, enforcing strict edicts based on a narrow interpretation of Islamic texts.
He became a commander in Bajaur after the Taliban leadership fired his predecessor, Maulvi Faqir Muhammad, for engaging in unauthorized peace talks with the Pakistani government.
Mr. Muhammad now leads a rival Taliban faction, which is also based in Afghanistan and has been attacking Pakistani border posts. His troops have clashed with those of Mullah Dadullah in the past month, a local reporter from Bajaur said by telephone.
Graham Bowley contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, Ismail Khan from Peshawar, Pakistan, and an employee of The New York Times from Kunar Province, Afghanistan.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/world/asia/nato-says-it-killed-a-pakistani-militant-in-afghanistan.html
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