Posted on 01/13/2006 3:38:41 PM PST by John W
Jan. 13, 2006 — Today, according to Pakistani military sources, U.S. aircraft attacked a compound known to be frequented by high level al Qaeda operatives. Pakistani officials tell ABC News that al Qaeda leader Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant, may have been among them.
U.S. intelligence for the last few days indicated that Zawahiri might be in the location or about to arrive, although there is still no confirmation from U.S. officials that he was among the victims.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
I was really being a wiza gurl :P But in fairness, I didn't use a sarc tag, so it wasn't obvious.
VICTIM......wth is that all about. The monster of Al-Quaeda a VICTIM. Some one should rerun the 9-11 films for the braindead at ABC.
I think he is in Iran deciding one if by land and two if by sea alarm.
10 missiles? They must have suspected something big.
Shah Zaman, who lost two sons and a daughter, recounted hearing planes at about 2:40 a.m. local time.
Does this usually give the bad guys time to flee?
nightline covering this now.
Who is that boar hog in the second image from the top left?
coverage over.
Brian Ross, Nightline .. just on .. saying tissue samples of the dead are being flown to DC for forensic id.
LOL...
BTW...Batchelor show now talking about Bird Flu...sounds like he has been less than impressed by the strike in Pakistan.
I'm a fan of the military channel on cable, and I recall hearing somewhere that the Predator was a "developing" technology at the beinging of the war on terror. It was not even set up to carry missles at the begining of the war as best I recall, but military officials found it could be "adapted" for that purpose (as your photo readily shows it has been). Also see, The Little Predator That Could Once "adapted," military officials found Predator to be "effective" in prosecuting selected targets. I do recall Predator being used to nail a key terrorist target in Yemen (over a year ago), and I believe it has flown other missions like that, but I forget the specifics. I seem to recall the terrorist in Yemen was traveling in a car. U.S. kills al-Qaeda suspects in Yemen
Now that I think about it, didn't a Predator almost to "tag and bag" Mullah Omar in Afghanistan? This article has a great photo of a Predator showing what I believe are Hell Fires mounted. The Sky Has Eyes
Anyway, it appears our military has been putting this new little work horse through it's paces in the war on terror. It appears the Predator drone has some of the personality of that spunky little "droid," R2D2 from Star Wars.
Thank God, Ronald Raegan had the foresight to empower military planners during his Presidency with innovations that are with us to this day. Even if Predator was not a direct result of the Raegan years, R.R. certainly put us on track for advanced, military, technological developements like Predator.
We can only hope that Zawahiri was meeting with Osama or some other madman, e.g., Turban Durban or Sheikh-y Ted Kennedy, maybe Jamal Reid.
I like the way you think :-)
If this place is so remote with tribal protection, how come they got there so easily to walk around and take samples?
Isn't that against their religion there?
This has the feel of it being true.....just the way it leaked out...There are a few MORE "drips" here, from www.sundaytimes.news.com.au:
Osama deputy's death unconfirmed
By Rana Jawad in Islamabad
14jan06
PAKISTAN was investigating whether al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri died in a US air strike on a village near the Afghan border, Pakistani and US officials said today.
US Central Intelligence Agency sources said they had unconfirmed indications that a high-level target, possibly Osama bin Laden's Egyptian number two and chief ideologue, was killed by a US Predator drone in Pakistan."We are investigating and as of now we are not in a position to say yes or no," Major General Shaukat Sultan, the spokesman for President Pervez Musharraf and for Pakistan's military, told AFP when asked to confirm whether Zawahiri was killed in the air strike.
"The investigation is going on as to what happened there," Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid told AFP, without elaborating. He refused to comment on whether Zawahiri may have been involved.
At least 18 people including women and children died when missiles hit the village of Mamund in northwestern Pakistan's restive Bajur tribal region bordering Afghanistan early Friday, residents said.
Another Pakistani official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the operation, said they were probing whether Zawahiri had been killed by the blast or had escaped.
US intelligence sources said that the CIA had indications that a top l-Qaeda operative might have died in an attack by a remotely-piloted US drone.
"The CIA has indications that a high-level l-Qaeda operative was killed by a Predator strike in Bajur. They are confirming an operation in Bajur," one of the sources said on condition of anonymity.
"They say the strike may have killed Zawahiri."
The US DefenCe Department denied that the US military had carried out any attacks in the area. "There is no reason to believe the US military is conducting operations there," said Lieutenant Colonel Todd Vician.
But the CIA is known to conduct operations along the long and porous Pakistan-Afghanistan border in the hunt for bin Laden and his deputies, believing tribesmen may have sheltered them after a US-led operation overthrew Afghanistan's pro-al-Qaeda Taliban regime in late 2001.
Locals said a senior Egyptian al-Qaeda commander named Hamza Rabia was killed in the tribal zone in December by a missile fired from a Predator, although Pakistan said the blast happened when munitions exploded inside his house.
US television network ABC quoted Pakistani military sources as saying five of the 18 people killed in the overnight blast were "high level al-Qaeda figures", and that forensic tests were being conducted to identify the remains.
An eye surgeon, Zawahiri has become Al-Qaeda's most senior spokesman in videos released in recent months as bin Laden has remained out of the public eye.
Zawahiri appeared in a new video released last week, calling on the US to withdraw from Iraq, leading some analysts to speculate that he was now the group's effective leader.
The US has been offering a $US25 million ($33.1 million) reward for Zawahiri since the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
Zawahiri became a radical Islamist in the 1960s and was a leader of Egypt's fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood group.
He was implicated in the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and the massacre of foreign tourists at Luxor in 1997. After the September 11 attacks, he was seen in video tapes with bin Laden.
I hadn't seen that before.
That's what I have for my mac.
The money pumped in to SDI (Star Wars) has had more payoffs than the Moon project. The consumer spin offs are to many to count. The brains and eyes of the predator can be traced back to SDI research. (for the most part)
who is "they"?
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