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Al-Qaeda leader killed in U.S. missile strike

ISLAMABAD: Three days after the Washington Post reported Pakistan had given the U.S. the green light to carry out missile strikes inside its tribal areas, a suspected U.S. unmanned aircraft carried out yet another raid in a tribal area bordering Afghanistan.

AFP reported that a senior Al-Qaeda operative was among five people killed in the strike by a drone that targeted a house in Bannu, North-West Frontier Province, in the early hours of Wednesday.

The Al-Qaeda operative was identified as an Arab named Abdullah Azam Al-Saudi, a senior commander involved in recruiting and training fighters. Earlier this month, a missile strike in North Waziristan is said to have killed Al-Qaeda’s propaganda chief, an Egyptian identified as Abu Jihad Al-Masri. The Washington Post said on Sunday the U.S. and Pakistan had reached an understanding that allows U.S. drone attacks inside Pakistan’s tribal areas, and enables Islamabad to protest against them without fear of contradiction. The report was denied by the Foreign Office, and separately in Parliament by the Foreign and Information Ministers.

The newspaper said the understanding had led to the suspension of ground attacks by U.S. troops in Pakistani soil, after one on September 3 in South Waziristan, which provoked a strong reaction from Pakistan and, for the first time, Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.

While there have been no more ground incursions since August, U.S. missiles have struck in the tribal areas at the rate of one or two a week regardless of protests by Pakistan that it is a violation of its sovereignty.

In a sign of increasing cooperation, the U.S. military is reported to have launched a coordinated operation with Pakistani forces to put pressure on militants on the Afghan border. A U.S. military commander said the operation, named “Lionheart,” took the cooperation between the U.S., Pakistani and Afghan forces to the “next level” of intelligence sharing and coordination. Colonel John Spiszer, who commands 3,000 troops in Afghanistan, said the cooperation developing between the U.S. and Pakistani forces was a “major success.”

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