Taliban leader Ilyas Kashmiri killed in drone strike ---- HUJI confirms death reports of Kashmiri

Taliban leader Ilyas Kashmiri killed in drone strike
---- HUJI confirms death reports of Kashmiri

By Saleem Mehsud

WANA, June 04: The chief of Harkatul Jihad al-Islami (HUJI) Ilyas Kashmiri was reportedly killed in the latest US drone strike which targeted a suspected compound in Ghwakhwa area of South Waziristan Agency (SWA) on Friday night.

The HUJI has confirmed the death of Ilyas Kashmiri through private TV channel. On the other hand, denying media reports about the killing of Ilyas Kashmiri, Taliban said that he was alive and safe.

Official sources said that US drone fired three missiles on a suspected compound in Ghwakhwa area, 10 kilometres west of Wana, the headquarters of SWA, killing nine suspected militants and inflicted injuries on three others.

Names of four victims killed in the latest US drone strike in SWA were Farooq, Ibrahim, Amir Ahmad and Usman, official sources said.

Later unconfirmed reports claimed that Ilyas Kashmiri, the mastermind of attack on PNS Mehran naval base in Karachi, was also believed to be among those targeted in the compound in the latest US drone strike in SWA.

“Kashmiri arrived at Thattai area some 30 minutes before the US drone strike,” a private TV channel report said quoting locals. Locals who have claimed to have recovered the bodies of those killed in the drone strike told a foreign channel on condition of anonymity that Taliban fighters were seeping tea in a garden when the US drones targeted them. Ilyas Kashmiri was among the deceased. Another source said that the deceased were buried in a local graveyard.

Pakistani officials did not confirm the killing of Ilyas Kashmiri, saying that officials have not received evidences about the death of Kashmiri.

Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani addressing a gathering in Multan was quizzed by media persons about the killing of Kashmiri in the US drone strike in Wana, he said that he has no information about the death of Kashmiri.

Kashmiri was the chief of the HUJI, an organisation affiliated with al Qaeda. He is widely believed to have masterminded the attack on the PNS Mehran naval base in Karachi.

Foreign media claimed quoting local sources that Kashmiri came to SWA 10 days earlier from Khyber Agency and was killed in the US drone strike. Official sources further said that those killed in the attack were believed to be militants from Punjab.

The US recently gave Pakistan time till July the month when NATO and allied forces will begin withdrawing from Afghanistan to launch a military offensive in North Waziristan tribal region and to capture five most wanted al Qaeda and Taliban leaders, including Kashmiri.

This is not the first that there have been reports of Kashmiri's death in a drone strike.

He was reported killed in an attack by a US spy plane in North Waziristan in September 2009 but re-emerged a month later to give an interview to Syed Saleem Shahzad, the journalist who was recently abducted and murdered in Pakistan.

Defense analysts were of the view that only official confirmation in the killing of Ilyas Kashmiri was not enough till the Taliban fighters or the al-Qaeda did not confirm the death of Kashmiri.

The United States has offered a reward of up to $5 million for information on Mohammad Ilyas Kashmiri.

Indian investigators believe that suspected LeT operatives David Headley and Tahhawur Hussain Rana, who allegedly helped plan the Mumbai terror attacks were reporting to the 313 Brigade, headed by Kashmiri.

On March 2, 2006, HUJI launched a suicide bombing against the US consulate in Karachi which killed four people including US diplomat David Foy and injured 48 others.

In January 2010, a US federal grand jury indicted Kashmiri for terrorism-related offenses in connection with a terrorist plot to attack the Jyllands-Posten newspaper in Denmark.

On August 6, 2010, the US treasury secretary designated Kashmiri a specially designated global terrorist and the US secretary of state designated HUJI as a foreign terrorist organization.

Kashmiri was born in 1964 in Azad Kashmir. He has lost sight in one eye and often wears aviator-style sunglasses. He was also expected to be the future leader of al-Qaeda, the successor of slain al-Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden who was killed on May 02 in Abbottabad operation by the US Special Forces.