For Matt Baker

Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2008 4:11 pm Post subject: For Matt Baker

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Five missiles fired from an American pilotless aircraft Monday hit a large compound in North Waziristan belonging to one of Pakistan’s most prominent Taliban leaders, a Pakistani intelligence official and a local resident said.

The missile attack at about 10:20 a.m. killed nine people, including two children, and injured up to 18, according to the account from the intelligence official. A spokesman for the Pakistani Army, Maj. Murad Khan, said the military knew of explosions near the compound, and was investigating.

The strike singled out the compound run by Sirajuddin Haqqani, the son of Jalaluddin Haqqani, whom the United States has accused of organizing some of the most serious recent attacks in Afghanistan against American and NATO forces and of masterminding a failed assassination attempt against the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai.

The two Haqqanis protect forces from Al Qaeda in their enclaves in North and South Waziristan, provide logistics and intelligence for Qaeda operatives, and act as a bridge between the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban who share the common mission to drive American and NATO troops from Afghanistan, according to American officials.

A spokesman at the United States Embassy in Islamabad, Lou Fintor, said the embassy had no comment on the strike.

The attack comes less than a week after the first publicly acknowledged ground operation by American Special Operations forces against Taliban operating inside Pakistan. The helicopter-borne forces struck at militants in a village in South Waziristan last Wednesday at the start of what American commanders said would likely be a more sustained campaign against the Taliban operating in Pakistan’s tribal region.

The attack Monday was the third American missile strike on Taliban targets in North and South Waziristan since the ground attack on Wednesday.

The compound belonging to Sirajuddin Haqqani was chiefly used as a guest house for militants arriving in North Waziristan who wanted to join the jihad forces of the Haqqani family, local residents in Miram Shah, the capital of North Waziristan, said.

An increasing number of Turks, Chechens, and Uzbeks have been arriving in North Waziristan in the last several months, according to Pakistani military officials.

The attack Monday could have been aimed at deterring this influx of foreign fighters who are considered the toughest and most resilient of the Taliban forces.

Located a few miles from Miram Shah at a place called Daande Darpkhel, the Haqqani compound had been used as a madrassa for up to a thousand students but was closed as a school several years ago after pressure from Pakistani authorities, officials familiar with the Haqqani operations said.

It appeared that neither Sirajuddin Haqqani, or his father, Jalaluddin, was present at the compound. The family runs a number of training camps and facilities in North Waziristan, and have plenty of places to hide, the officials said.

ARY television, a private Pakistani television station, reported that Naseeruddin Haqqani, a younger brother of Sirajuddin, said his brother and father were "alive and well" in Afghanistan.

The missile strike came on the eve of the inauguration of Pakistan’s new president, Asif Ali Zardari. Mr. Zardari, who easily won an electoral college vote Saturday, has declared that he will pursue the fight against the Taliban more vigorously. He is seen in Pakistan as pro-American and has been welcomed by the Bush administration for his support of the campaign against terrorism.

Two years ago, the elder Mr. Haqqani, now in his 60s and said to be in failing health, was called a “Pakistani asset” by a senior official of the Inter-Services Intelligence, the nation’s powerful spy agency, as a way of explaining why the Pakistani Army did not move against him.

One of the biggest complaints of the Bush administration has been the reluctance of the Pakistani government to sever its ties with Taliban militants like the Haqqanis. Pakistan has continued to regard the Taliban as a valuable force for protecting Pakistan’s interests in Afghanistan in the event of an American withdrawal.

In the 1980s, the elder Mr. Haqqani was cultivated as a “unilateral” asset of the C.I.A., and received tens of thousands of dollar in cash for his work in fighting the Soviet Army in Afghanistan, according to an account in the recent book “The Bin Ladens” by Steve Coll. At that time, the elder Haqqani helped and protected Osama bin Laden, who was then building his own militia to fight the Soviet forces, Mr. Coll wrote.
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Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2008 4:56 pm Post subject:

Great job. Smile

Sorry about the kids but they should not be hiding around woman and children anyway.The kids would wind up hating us anyway I am sure.We need to keep the pressure on the bad guys hunt them down and kill them everyday. That is why we need the right man in the white house to keep up the pressure and I think that would be McCain A good ex-military man.
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Some days you get the bear and some days the bear gets you.

Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 2:28 pm Post subject:

Hey Recon, I was checking for the source of your article, to no avail. Please advise.
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The lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math.

Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 12:16 pm Post subject:

I found it on Google News. Just look up UAV strikes Afghanistan or Predator strikes Afghanistan and you will find it.
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