Afghan-Pakistan Qaeda chief 'killed by US drone'

Google AFP ^ | September 28, 2010

[La Lydia]

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Al-Qaeda's operational chief for Afghanistan and Pakistan has been killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan's lawless tribal border areas, Pakistani security officials said Tuesday. A covert American drone campaign has this month ramped up attacks on Al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives in the region as part of efforts to bring an end to a nine-year war in Afghanistan so that US troops can return home.

Sheikh Fateh was reportedly made Al-Qaeda chief in Afghanistan and Pakistan after Al-Qaeda's purported number three and former Osama bin Laden treasurer Mustafa Abu al-Yazid was killed on May 21, in another apparent drone strike. Fateh, whom the intelligence officials said was also killed in North Waziristan, is relatively unknown and his name -- a likely nom de guerre -- does not feature on the US list of most-wanted terrorists. But security analysts said that any killing of a senior Al-Qaeda operative would be a victory for the US campaign.

Pakistani security officials said the Egyptian was killed on Saturday in a US drone strike on North Waziristan, a hub of Al-Qaeda and Taliban commanders where the covert American missile war has been concentrated.

Reports of high-profile killings by drone strikes -- which the US military as a rule does not confirm -- are generally based on intelligence intercepts, with much of the semi-autonomous region off limits on the ground.... Shortly after Saturday's attack, Pakistani officials reported four militants killed in a strike on a vehicle in Datta Khel village area near the town of Miranshah...Tuesday, another US drone killed four more militants, destroying a rebel compound in Zeba village close to the Afghan border in the district of South Waziristan, Pakistani intelligence officials said....

[La Lydia]

Get 'er done.

[Old Retired Army Guy]

Okay now who wants to volunteer to take his place?

[Old Retired Army Guy]

Uh, what happended to everyone?

[La Lydia]

Jawa is saying this guy is actually Al-Masri, who only became head of al Qaeda operations in the region in July of this year. His predecessor, Mustafa Abu Yazid was killed in May. We are picking them off almost as fast as they can promote them.

[SoldierDad]

Great - another one bites the dust. He’ll be replaced, and that one will die. Then another replacement, and that one will die. Nuke the b@st@rds and be done with it.

[rhombus]

Pakistani security officials said the Egyptian was killed on Saturday in a US drone strike on North Waziristan...

Maybe yes, maybe no. Or maybe they'll just say anything so Obama can declare victory and go home.

[Old Retired Army Guy]

Worked on Japan.

[LibLieSlayer]

We need zawahiri.

LLS

[cranked]

...to be replaced by 10 others.... =.=

[sappy]

only thing that could save BHO’s 2012 campaign would be to get bin laden or al zawahiri.

[onedoug]

What a warrior hussein be.

[Old Retired Army Guy]

I don’t think Zawahiri is in that Region. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was being protected in some big metropolitan area like Karachi.

[Navy Patriot]

Maybe yes, maybe no. Or maybe they'll just say anything so Obama can declare victory and go home.

Worth investigation.

LBJ used fictitious enemy body counts to con the public while he micro managed the war to larger US losses than we should have had to incur.

[JPG]

When they asked for a volunteer the last time this was the only dude who didn't take a step back.

[adorno]

Okay now who wants to volunteer to take his place?

When it comes to radical Islam and the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, there won't be shortage of people willing to take his place.

Killing a "leader" is not going to win the war in Afghanistan. So, how many countless "leaders" did we kill in the war so far? Killing a leader just allows us to claim, through newspaper headlines, that "we're making progress" and the "enemy is on the run"; all of that while the reality on the ground is still very precarious.

We can try to win the hearts and minds of the people, but, it's not the regular folks who are waging war in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The only way to win that war and all wars against radical Islam and against Al-Qaeda, is to eliminate everyone who even remotely sympathizes with the radical elements of Islam. (Yeah, I know, there will be some who will point out that Islam is, by design, radical in itself, and those people might have a point). But, essentially, we're not fighting to win, and we're just trying to contain them. Let's see... where did we make that same mistake before... hmmm... oh, yeah, Vietnam comes to mind (and the enemy did win that war in the end).

[rhombus]

LBJ used fictitious enemy body counts to con the public while he micro managed the war to larger US losses than we should have had to incur.

I was a kid waiting for my draft number to come up and I watched those body counts on the television every night. Even then, I knew the counts just didn't add up.

[LibLieSlayer]

Or iran maybe.

LLS

[adorno]

only thing that could save BHO’s 2012 campaign would be to get bin laden or al zawahiri.

Obama's thinking differently.

He believes that his democrats and his supporters are looking for us to get the hell out of Afghanistan.

He'll just declare a unilateral withdrawal and claim that he didn't want the U.S. stuck in an "unwinnable" war, like in Vietnam. There are too many people in the U.S. that believe that we shouldn't be engaged in any foreign conflicts, and it doesn't matter the cause. So, Obama will be counting on those voters.

[adorno]

I was a kid waiting for my draft number to come up and I watched those body counts on the television every night. Even then, I knew the counts just didn't add up.

I was in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968, and as a radio operator in the Marines, I reported actual enemy body counts, and that was on a daily basis. We didn't report fraudulent body counts; we actually saw the bodies and tallied them up. And, while I was there, for one year only, I reported a lot of dead enemy. And that was just from my company alone.

However, when it comes to what was reported to the American public, I don't know if the figures were made to look "better" or not. But, from personal experiences, and if we can extrapolate, we did kill a lot of enemy.

[Herakles]

I’m curious, do they paint little Qaeda bodies on the side of the drones like they did on the fighters after an enemy plane was shot down?? I think they should!