Senior Al-Qaida leader was killed in the recent Drone strikes in Pakistan – US officials

Senior Al-Qaida leader was killed in the recent Drone strikes in Pakistan – US officials

According to US officials Al-Qaida’s senior operations organizer, Aslam Awan, a Pakistani national from Abbottabad was targeted and killed in one of two US drone strikes last week in Pakistan.

Awan was from the same town where US Special Forces killed Osama bin Ladin on May 02, 2011.

According to the sources, Awan was targeted in a strike by a US-operated drone on January 10 directed at what news reports said was a compound near the town of Miranshah in the border province of North Waziristan.

“Aslam Awan was a senior al Qaeda external operations planner who was working on attacks against the West. His death reduces al-Qaeda’s thinning bench of another operative devoted to plotting the death of innocent civilians,” a US official said.

That strike broke an undeclared eight-week hiatus in attacks by the armed, unmanned drones that patrol Pakistan’s tribal areas and are a key weapon in US President Barack Obama’s counter-terrorism strategy.

The sources described Awan, who also was known by the nom-de-guerre Abdullah Khorasani, as a significant figure in the remaining core leadership of al Qaeda, which US officials say has been sharply reduced by the drone campaign. Most of the drone attacks
are conducted as part of a clandestine CIA operation.

Meanwhile, officials denied reports that Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader Hakimullah Mehsud was targeted in the drone strikes. Pakistani officials also rejected news of his death in the said drone strikes.

Mehsud, leader of one of the most potent Pakistan based Taliban groups, was reportedly killed in a June 12 drone strike. 

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=9984

Posted by Ammar Ahmad on Jan 21 2012. Filed under Latest News, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry