Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani told reporters in the eastern city of Multan he has no information about the death of Kashmiri, the mastermind of the last month brazen attack on navy air station in Karachi.
Ilyas Kashmiri was among nine people killed in the Friday might US drone strike on the village of Laman, some 10 kilometers from Wana, the center of South Waziristan.
Kashmiri was among the five top militants, whose names were given to Pakistani authorities by the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her visit to Islamabad last month.
BBC Urdu correspondent in Peshawar, Dilawar Wazir, said he was told by residents that Kashmiri was among the nine militants killed in the US strike late Friday night.
A resident said that the locals saw bodies of the militants Saturday morning lying in a garden, who had been taking tea when the US aircraft fired missiles.
The locals buried the bodies on Saturday.
BBC Urdu reported that Kashmiri and other militants recently arrived in Waziristan from Khyber agency.
Ilyas Kashmiri, head of the Harkatul Jihad al-Islami, was considered very close to al-Qaeda.
He was also thought to be the next al-Qaeda chief after the death of Osama bin Laden.
The strike came days after Pakistan and the US formed a joint intelligence network to hunt down the militants.
The US had handed over a list of five top militant leaders which besides Kashmir include Mullah Mohammad Omar, Aiman al-Zwahiri, Atiya Abdur Rahman and Sirajuddin Haqqani.
Kashmiri, who belongs to Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, was believed to be the mastermind of series of major attacks on Pakistani security forces and installations.
The attacks include the last month’s audacious attack on the navy air base in Karachi and the 2009 attack on the army’s general headquarters in Rawalpindi.
If the death of Kashmiri is confirmed, it would be second major loss of the militants after the May 2 death of Osama bin Laden.
0 comments:
Post a Comment