Posted on 09/08/2009 6:15:12 AM PDT by batter
Two senior al Qaeda leaders are among those thought to have been killed in the Sept. 8 Predator strike in Pakistan's Taliban-controlled tribal agency of North Waziristan.
Ilyas Kashmiri and Mustafa al Jaziri may have been killed during the strike in the village of Machi Khel near Mir Ali. Unmanned US strike aircraft are reported to have hit a car and a madrassa in the attack, The News reported.
Initially five Uzbeks from the Islamic Jihad Group were thought to have been killed, but the report was revised to two Arab al Qaeda members, three Punjabi jihadis, and two or three local Taliban fighters killed.
Mustafa al Jaziri is a senior military commander for al Qaeda. "Jaziri sits on al Qaeda's military shura [council]," a senior US military intelligence official told The Long War Journal. "He is an important and effective leader." Jaziri is an Algerian national.
Ilyas Kashmiri is "one of al Qaeda's most dangerous commanders" the official said. He is the operational commander of the Harkat-ul Jihad Islami (HuJI), an al Qaeda-linked terror group that operates in Pakistan, Kashmir, India, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh. Kashmiri was recently listed as the fourth most wanted terrorist by Pakistan's Interior Ministry.
Kashmiri is thought to have played a major role in the multi-pronged suicide attack against government and security installations in the eastern Afghan province of Khost in May, the military intelligence official said.
(Excerpt) Read more at longwarjournal.org ...
< sarcasm >
Oh, NO ... it’s a war crime!!!!!
Bush’s fault!
</sarcasm>
Number 3,report to headquarters!
5 Uzbek Jihadi's;
4 Arab al Qaeda's;
3 Jihad Punjabi's;
2 Taliban thugs;
and a Mohammedan in a pear tree.
I wager that if you look up :Senior leader killed” you will find thousands that have been killed before. Just how many senior leaders do they have?
that is about the only hope left for Bam’s presidency, that he might get lucky with a Predator strike and take out OBL or his lieutenant
They blowed up real good.
You do realize they replace the dead ones, right?
They are pretty deep into the bench now. The third stringers are running the show.
Well, every time you kill the senior Muhammadan Jihadi's, the next ones down get promoted to senior Mohammedan Jihadi's. How many are there? About 3 billion they claim, and thousands more are hatched daily.
YEAAAAAAAAAAAY! Another one for the GOOD GUYS!!!!!
.......cain’t kill’em quick enuff fer me... good shootin’....!
......The third stringers are running the show.......
I would argue that the fact there are promotions to replace dead leaders doesn’t mean the promoted are inferior.
If that were the case, the US forces might not have won WWII.
This point is made strongly in Band of Brothers where Dick Winters started as a lieutenant and ended as a Major in the space of just over a year. Many of the Noncoms were similarly promoted, at least one receiving a battlefield commission. Easy company literally ate up leaders as it progressed from Normandy to Bertgesgarden. As the need came about, they rose up from below.
I get your take point about WWII but there is a difference. The officers that lead in the 101st had never seen combat before. They were appointed to their positions, they hadn’t proven they were worthy of them.
For AQ there has been a Darwinian process that weeded out the weakest leaders. AQ has been at war in Afghanistan, Somalia, Chechnya, Bosnia, Kosovo, Nigeria, Algeria, Egypt, Yemen, the Philippines and Pakistan for 30 years. That process has left them with the leaders who do the best job for them.
When we kill their leaders we are killing those who have worked their way to the top, they are AQ’s version of Dick Winters.
good deal!
earlier thread with 5 Uzbeks reported dead
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2334087/posts
Here is the latest top 10 most wanted in Pakistan:
No.1: Maulana Fazlullah. No.2: Hakimullah Mehsud. No.3: Qari Hussain Mehsud. No.4: Ilyas Kashmiri. No.5: Rashid Rauf. No.6: Mangal Bagh Afridi, founder of the Lashkar-e-Islam, Khyber Agency. No. 7: Matiur Rehman AKA Samad Sial, commander of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. No.8: Maulvi Faqir Mohammed, deputy commander of the TTP. No.9: Waliur Rehman, commander of the S Waziristan chapter of the TTP. No.10: Qari Mohammad Zafar, Ameer of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a suicide bombing squad.
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