A TOP Pakistani militant linked to attacks in Europe and to al-Qaeda’s high command was reported killed by a missile fired from a drone on Friday last.
The death of Ilyas Kashmiri in the semi-autonomous South Waziristan agency in the border zone of Pakistan had yet to be confirmed, but officials in Kabul said the reports were “credible”.
Kashmiri (46), was falsely reported dead in 2009.
The militant leader, who was behind a plot to attack the offices of a Danish newspaper in 2009 and a series of recent extremist operations in Pakistan, was one of five senior figures named by the US recently as individuals they particularly wanted Pakistani authorities to take action against.
US defence secretary Robert Gates is in the region, arriving on Saturday in Kabul for talks with Afghan president Hamid Karzai and senior US commanders. He will travel around Afghanistan to review the situation, weeks before an expected presidential announcement of a withdrawal of troops. The exact number of servicemen and women who will leave Afghanistan has yet to be decided.
Mr Gates, who steps down as defence secretary at the end of June, said continued military pressure on the Taliban could improve prospects for political reconciliation, something which could accelerate a US “drawdown” of forces.
“You can’t be oblivious to the growing war weariness at home and the diminishing support in the Congress,” he said. “So I think these are all things that the president will have to weigh and those of us advising him will have to weigh.” Mr Gates said however it was important to achieve the war aims laid down by President Barack Obama, despite the high cost and flagging support.
All western combat troops are now scheduled to leave Afghanistan by 2014. The current strategy is to build up local security forces to enable a rolling transition of responsibility across the country.
In recent weeks the level of violence in Afghanistan has risen as insurgents launched an offensive.
On Friday six Nato soldiers were killed, four of them in a bomb explosion in the east of the country. In all 15 western soldiers have died in insurgent violence over the last week.
The death of Kashmiri, if confirmed, will be a blow to militants in the region. A leader of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami group, he had been reported to be one of the few non-Arabs to be appointed to senior posts within al-Qaeda.
Whether his position was as formal as some officials claim is not clear, though the fact that he was closely allied with top al-Qaeda leaders is undisputed.
One visitor to Kashmiri’s base in the Pakistani tribal areas along the frontier with Afghanistan described seeing rooms full of explosive vests for suicide attacks.
Kashmiri was virtually unknown beyond specialist intelligence circles until two years ago and is thus an example of how new figures continually replace those killed.
* A bomb blast killed at least 18 people in the cantonment area of Pakistan’s northwestern city of Nowshera yesterday, police said.
"The blast took place at a bakery shop and we have confirmed 18 dead," said a police spokesman. Thirty-five people were also wounded in the blast, he said. – ( Guardianservice)