Ilyas Kashmiri Killed?

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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so how was OBL’s DNA test conducted and verified within few hours if this one will take few days to confirm? :konfused:

Didn’t US “watch” OBL for about an year?

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Nahieen janab..it does matter who killed him....

The shameless Pakistani media driven by fanaticism and sensationalism will not focus on the point that this guy who was responsible for killing thousands of innocent Pakistanis was actually killed by Americans via drone attacks....all those shameless Islamic-ideology driven fanatic idiots who keep screaming about Pakistan's sovereignty being violated by USA drone attacks will now remain silent without answering the fundamental question that if pakistan army had capability of killing this guy on its own, why didn't it exercise it?

so it definitely matters who killed him..A USA DRONE ATTACK killed this guy not Pakistani army although our army is now claiming that we provided the intelligence support...and I am sure we did but what we also need to do is to ask our army and its "duffer" generals to come clean on this topic and let Pakistani public know that gievn our lack of capabilities to launch spotless air strikes, these drone attacks are indeed carried out on our own request and intelligence so that people of "CONSPIRASTAN" can develop some level of consensus among themselves...

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^ well said, if PA had the information they could have killed him themselves...

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**http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/06/04/official-says-top-al-qaeda-operative-killed-in-pakistan/

Official Says Top Al Qaeda Operative Killed in Pakistan**
Published June 04, 2011
| Associated Press

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – An Al Qaeda leader sought in the 2008 Mumbai siege and rumored to be a longshot choice to succeed Usama bin Laden was believed killed in a U.S. drone attack as he met with other militants in an apple orchard in Pakistan, an intelligence official said Saturday. If confirmed, it would be another blow against the terror organization a month after the slaying of its leader.

The purported death of Ilyas Kashmiri – who also was accused of killing many Pakistanis – could help soothe US-Pakistan ties that nearly unraveled after the May 2 bin Laden raid. While it was unclear how Kashmiri was tracked, his name was on a list of militants that both countries recently agreed to jointly target as part of measures to restore trust, officials have said.

It also would be a major victory for U.S. intelligence, particularly the controversial CIA-run drone program, which began in 2005 but has been increasingly criticized by the Pakistanis amid rising anti-American sentiment in the country.

Senior U.S. officials in Washington, Islamabad and the Afghan capital, Kabul, said they could not confirm that Kashmiri was killed. Other Pakistani officials also said they couldn’t confirm it.

Described by American officials as Al Qaeda’s military operations chief in Pakistan, the 47-year-old Pakistani was one of five most-wanted militant leaders in the country, accused of a string of bloody attacks in Pakistan and India as well as aiding plots in the West. He also has been named a defendant in an American court over a planned attack on a Danish newspaper that published cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in 2005.

Washington had offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his location.

One Pakistani intelligence officer said Kashmiri was believed killed along with eight other militants in a drone strike Friday close to Wana town in South Waziristan, not far from the Afghan border. A senior Pakistani security official said there “were strong indications” of his death.

All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of department policy and the sensitivity of the subject.

Verifying who has been killed in the drone strikes is difficult, with DNA samples or photographic evidence typically needed. Initial reports have turned out to be wrong in the past, including one in September 2009 that said Kashmiri had been killed.

Sometimes they are never formally denied or confirmed in Pakistan or in the United States.

A fax purportedly sent by the militant group he was heading – Harakat-ul-Jihad al-Islami’s feared “313 Brigade” – confirmed Kashmiri was “martyred” in Friday’s 11:15 p.m. strike. It was sent to journalists in Peshawar, and its authenticity could not be independently confirmed. The group, which has not previously communicated with the media, promised revenge against America in the handwritten statement on a white page bearing its name of the group.

Soon after the attack, local intelligence officials said the slain men were in a large compound. The intelligence officer said Saturday that the militants were meeting in an apple orchard near the house when the missiles hit.

Kashmiri fought with jihadi fighters in Afghanistan and in Indian-held Kashmir in the 1990s, allegedly with the support of the Pakistani state, and was said to have lost a finger and been blinded in one eye during those conflicts. He reportedly once served in the Pakistani army, but he denied that in an interview in 2009. Like other top Al Qaeda and allied militants, he was believed to be living in the tribal regions close to the Afghan border in recent years.

Indian officials have alleged Kashmiri was involved in the 2008 siege of a hotel and other targets in the Indian city of Mumbai that killed more than 160 people.

In an ongoing terror trial in Chicago, an admitted American-Pakistani militant has testified that Kashmiri helped plan the Mumbai siege and wanted to attack U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin. Kashmiri had been angry over U.S. drone attacks inside Pakistan and wanted to target the company, according to David Coleman Headley.

Headley, who pleaded guilty to laying the groundwork for the Mumbai attacks, also testified during the trial of his longtime friend Chicago businessman Tahawwur Rana that he worked with Kashmiri to plot the attack against the Danish newspaper. Headley said he traveled to Copenhagen to conduct surveillance. The attack was never carried out and Kashmiri was charged in absentia along with several others in the case.

Kashmiri has most recently been linked to last month’s 18-hour assault on a naval base in Karachi. He is also accused of masterminding several raids on Pakistan police and intelligence buildings in 2009, as well as a failed assassination attempt against then-President Pervez Musharraf in 2003.

Pakistani leaders did not immediately comment on Friday’s attack, but Kashmiri’s alleged involvement in attacks on Pakistanis was likely to mute the public reaction.

The U.S Department of State says he organized a 2006 suicide bombing against the U.S. consulate in Karachi that killed an American diplomat and three other people. In early 2009, it said Kashmiri operated a militant training center in Miram Shah in North Waziristan.

Considered to be one of Al Qaeda’s most accomplished terrorists, he had been mentioned by security analysts as a contender for replacing bin Laden as head of the group, though many thought the fact that he was not an Arab dampened his chances.

Ties between Washington and Islamabad have deteriorated since the bin Laden raid. Pakistanis viewed the unilateral operation as a violation of sovereignty, while bin Laden’s location in an army town close to the capital added to long-standing suspicion in Washington that elements of Pakistan’s security forces were protecting him.

With fresh leverage, American officials made it clear they expected Pakistan to boost efforts to locate other Al Qaeda leaders in the country. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in Islamabad two weeks ago she expected Pakistan to “take decisive steps” in the days ahead.

**The U.S. drone strikes have been controversial since they picked up pace in 2008, with about 30 reported so far this year.

Pakistani army officers and politicians publicly protest them, too weak to admit to working with the ever unpopular America in targeting fellow Pakistanis, but the country’s intelligence agencies have been known to provide targeting information.
**
Opposition to the strikes grew this year after a CIA contractor shot and killed two Pakistanis in the street, triggering ever more intense anti-American anger. After the bin Laden raid, the parliament issued a declaration calling for the attacks to end.

The United States does not acknowledge the CIA-run program, though its officials have confirmed the death of high-value targets before, including the head of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, in 2009 – a strike welcomed by many Pakistan officials because he too was a sworn enemy of the country.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/06/04/official-says-top-al-qaeda-operative-killed-in-pakistan/#ixzz1OMrAGz2q

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i think they aren’t sure if they, in fact, GOT this guy…it’s as simple as that! we’ll see.

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It's interesting conclusion for sure.
But if this is true then the next conclusion is that Saleem Shahzad was such a good confidant of Taliban that he knew exactly where their top leadership was at any given time. Now this conclusion is a bit difficult to accept ... at least to me. And if this conclusion is unacceptable then the first logical conclusion would be unacceptable too.

Having said that, it is still very interesting that Kashmiri got killed a few days after Saleem was killed by ISI, after he mentioned Kashmiri in his piece.

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OBL’s extended family has been accessible for years. It is easy for the US to get enough samples of his offsprings and/or siblings. Many even hated the man.

They watched him in Pakistan, so the situation cannot be compared. If you watch your own kids committing shaitani in your house, it is different than watching your neighbour’s kids doing so. It is easy for you to stop your child next to you.

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What is 98 % either he is dead or alive?

http://www.dawn.com/2011/06/05/there-is-a-98-per-cent-chance-kashmiri-is-dead-malik.html

There is a ’98 per cent’ chance Kashmiri is dead: Malik

ISLAMABAD: **Pakistan’s interior minister said on Sunday that he was “98 per cent sure” senior al Qaeda operative Ilyas Kashmiri was killed in a US drone strike near the Afghan border.

US officials in Washington were sceptical over reports that Kashmiri, seen as one of the world’s most dangerous militants, was dead.

A US National Security official said he could not confirm that he had been killed and another US official said it was doubtful.
**
“All ground intelligence shows that he is dead. What I can say is there is a 98 per cent chance he is dead,” Interior Minister Rehman Malik told Reuters.

**“Since we do not have the body. We do not have DNA we need to confirm. This is the substantive evidence we are looking for.”

That may not be possible since it is very difficult for Pakistani security forces to get to areas like South Waziristan where intelligence officials said Kashmiri was killed in a drone strike on Friday night.
**
After missile strikes by remotely-operated drone aircraft, militants often seal off the area then bury their comrades.

The elimination of Kashmiri would be another coup for the United States after American special forces killed Osama bin Laden in a garrison town close to Islamabad on May 2.

A senior Pakistani security official said: “It’s almost confirmed that he is dead. Different sources confirmed it but we can’t say it is 100 per cent confirmed because we don’t have the body.”

He went on to say that Kashmiri was holding a meeting with other militants when the drone missile struck.

One intelligence official said that Pakistan had tipped off the Americans about the whereabouts of Kashmiri, whom the US Department of State has labelled a “specially designated global terrorist”.

A Pakistani television station quoted the group Kashmiri headed, Harkat-ul Jihad Islami (HUJI) which is allied to al Qaeda, as saying he had been killed and that it will avenge his death.

The SITE online monitoring service said the HUJI statement was posted on a jihadist forum it tracks. The US National Security official expressed doubts about the statement. Its authenticity could not be independently verified.

**Kashmiri was reported to have been killed in a September 2009 strike by a US drone. He resurfaced and gave an interview to Asia Times online correspondent Saleem Shahzad.
**
Shahzad disappeared from Islamabad a week ago. His body was found in a canal two days later with what police said were torture marks. The media and human rights groups have speculated that Pakistan’s military intelligence agency may have had hand in the killing, an allegation it strongly denied.

Human Rights Watch said Shahzad had voiced concern about his safety after getting threatening telephone calls from Pakistani intelligence agents and was under surveillance since 2010.

Before his death, Shahzad wrote an article stating that Kashmiri’s followers carried out a militant siege of the PNS Mehran naval base in Karachi last month which drew sharp public criticism of the Pakistani military.

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wonder how he reached/calculated the figure of 98% !!!

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You see the result. It is 98% in their favor so you can ignore the bogus fax.
No body could be identified,no report of any DNA test, No official claim by Al-Qaida ,
But be happy and forget all.
1st Jan to 31st May 2011- Have a look

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that means the bomb blew up most of his body but one finger was unhurt. They are not sure if that zombie finger is still alive and will finger with WOT business or not?

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This statement is for “bookies” in the circle, issued to wrong audience.

:hehe:

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It is also possible that ISI knew whereabouts of Ilyas, and they executed him after it was determined that he was involved in PNS Mehran attack.

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Saleem Shahzad didn't need to know the exact whereabouts of Kashmiri. Just a good enough lead that could be traced and followed. This scenario could have easily happened. Saleem Shahzad did seem to have a lot of inside information of the various Taliban and AlQaeda groups. He must have had pretty good contacts with them. As a reporter he would be expected to protect his contacts.

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Kashmiri planned reprisal attacks for Osama’s death
By Asad Kharal
Published: June 6, 2011

LAHORE:
Ilyas Kashmiri, one of the most active al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan, had convened a special meeting in the Data Khel area of North Waziristan Agency a week ago to constitute a special squad that would be tasked with avenging the death of Osama bin Laden.

According to intelligence reports seen by The Express Tribune, the head of the fearsome 313 Brigade of the Harkatul Jihad al Islami called a meeting of several Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commanders to create the “Laskhar-e-Osama” which would be tasked with carrying out suicide bombings throughout Pakistan, including some high-profile targets. Kashmiri was reportedly killed in a US drone strike in South Waziristan on Friday.

Besides Kashmiri, TTP commanders Asmatullah Maavia, Amjad Farooqui, and Badar Mansoor, among others, attended the meeting. The three commanders were assigned territories to conduct bombings in. Mansoor was tasked with targeting Lahore and southern Punjab, while Farooq was told to carry out attacks in Islamabad and Azad Kashmir.

Intelligence agencies were able to collect information about the secret meeting, according to sources familiar with the matter, adding that they were also told that Kashmiri had moved his location away from Data Khel. Information about possible attacks has been forwarded to law-enforcement agencies throughout the country. Security officials have been told to beef up protective arrangements at the possible target sites.

Among the attacks planned by the group were strikes against diplomats and embassies in Pakistan, including those from the United States, China, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The militants reportedly planned to target the US embassy in Islamabad with high explosives.

Other plans included procuring large quantities of poison, presumably to be mixed with food supplies for Nato troops that pass through Pakistani territory. The plan called for abducting the drivers of Nato supply trucks and then mixing the poison in with food supplies.

Among the Pakistani targets on the militants’ list were high-profile security officials and the Pakistan Ordnance Factories in Wah, the nation’s leading production facility for ammunition. Visiting Chinese dignitaries were also reported to be targets. Possible means of delivering explosives included motorcycle rickshaws.

Two other intelligence reports reveal that Saudi and UAE diplomats have come under threat in recent weeks. In particular, one report stated that “Saudi diplomats in Islamabad are very much concerned about their security,” fearing that they may be targeted by al Qaeda militants seeking to avenge Bin Laden’s death, who was stripped of his Saudi citizenship in 1994.
Another report stated that “The UAE Embassy in Islamabad has received threats from some unknown miscreants. Further details are not yet available.”

In what appears to be an attempt to carry out a sustained campaign against the Pakistani military, intelligence reports indicate that militant groups based out of Orakzai Agency plan to attack other military and important civilian installations across the country. Possible targets mentioned in the report include the Karachi port, the Karachi airport, oil terminals and naval bases throughout the country. {Whats the army doing in this regard every now and then we hear that the army is carrying out operations in Orakzai Agency, does it mean that after all these operations are SWA, Mohmand and Orakzai still out of bound for Pakistan Army?}

Ilyas Kashmiri was one of the most feared militants in Pakistan. He had started off as a member of Harkatul Mujahideen before branching off to create his own Harkatul Jihad al- Islami (HuJI). He also created the feared 313 brigade, a band of militants whose name is a reference to the Battle of Badr, when Islamic Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) fought and won a battle against over 1,000 Makkan pagans with just 313 Muslim fighters.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 6th, 2011.

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Wana tense after Ilyas Kashmiri’s killing

Mushtaq Yusufzai
Monday, June 06, 2011

PESHAWAR: The situation remained tense in Wana and adjoining villages in South Waziristan on Sunday, a day after the killing of militant commander Ilyas Kashmiri in the US drone attack on Friday night.

Also, the people felt frightened due to the increase in the number of unmanned US spy planes in the area. Senior militant commanders of Maulvi Nazeer-led Taliban group said the killing of Ilyas Kashmiri in the area populated by their Ahmadzai Wazir tribe had saddened them.

**Talking to The News from somewhere in South Waziristan, the Taliban commanders said Ilyas Kashmiri had come to Wana a few days ago from North Waziristan on the advice of his friends and well-wishers as they had heard the Pakistan government was going to launch military operation there. They said Ilyas Kashmiri and all others killed with him in the drone attack had been laid to rest in Wana.
**
Asked why his men took the initiative and called the media people to confirm Ilyas Kashmiri’s death when militants in the past have been seen hiding death of their leaders, one of Maulvi Nazeer’s senior commanders argued: “Real mujahideen and those associated with al-Qaeda and Arab mujahideen never hide the loss of their people in fighting.”

He said the CIA has increased the number of drones flying in their area after killing Ilyas Kashmiri, which meant that they thought senior level militants had left North Waziristan and taken shelter in South Waziristan. He said Maulvi Nazeer too was shocked over Ilyas Kashmiri’s death but had disappeared after unprecedented rise in the number of drones flying in the area.
**
The Taliban commander argued that it seemed Pakistani officials in Wana knew that Ilyas Kashmiri had arrived in Wana as they convened a tribal jirga of the Ahmadzai Wazir tribes and asked them to expel some notorious militants including Ilyas Kashmiri from their soil otherwise the Americans would then come here and conduct an Abbottabad-like operation to snatch or kill them on the spot.
**
Senior officials in Wana said they were still making efforts to obtain some credible evidence that could determine the killing of Ilyas Kashmiri. “We have not been able to confirm if he is dead in this attack as the militants held siege of the whole area after the drone fired missiles and didn’t allow any outsider to visit the apple orchard where they were killed,” said the official, wishing not to be named.

He felt the militants could try to declare him dead through the media so that the Americans should stop hunting him down. He said there were several militants, local and foreigners, who have been declared dead by the media in the US drone strikes were still alive {hmm is this the 2 % chance? }

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Top al Qaeda leader Ilyas Kashmiri killed in US Predator strike
By BILL ROGGIOJune 4, 2011

The US has killed Ilyas Kashmiri, one of al Qaeda’s most dangerous military commanders and strategists, in a Predator airstrike yesterday in South Waziristan.

Kashmiri is said to be one of nine members of the al Qaeda-linked Harkat-ul Jihad Islami, or HUJI, who were killed in yesterday’s Predator airstrike that leveled a compound in the Wana area of South Waziristan.

A Harkat-ul Jihad Islami spokesman named Abu Hanzla Kashir told Dawn that Kashmiri was killed in the attack. Kashir also threatened to attack the US to avenge Kashmiri’s death.

“We confirm that our Amir (leader) and commander in chief, Mohammad Ilyas Kashmiri, along with other companions, was martyred in an American drone strike on June 3, 2011, at 11:15 pm,” Kashir told the Pakistani news channel, according to The Telegraph.

“The oppressor US is our only target and, God willing, we will take revenge on the U.S. soon with full force,” Kashir said, according to CNN.

US intelligence officials contacted by The Long War Journal said that Kashmiri was indeed a target of the attack, but they could not confirm that he was killed.

“HUJI’s statement is a sure sign we got him, we are pretty confident he is dead but we cannot confirm 100 percent,” one official told The Long War Journal. The area where Kashmiri was killed is under Taliban control.

**Another HUJI leader, Qari Mohammad Idrees, told The News that Kashmiri was killed after traveling from North Waziristan to South Waziristan in an effort to dodge a rumored Pakistani military offensive.

“We lost our hero finally. He was the hero of Islam, Kashmir and Afghanistan,” Idrees told The News.

The attack took place in an area of South Waziristan controlled by Mullah Nazir, a Taliban commander who has proudly admitted he is also an al Qaeda leader. The Pakistani military refuses to move against Nazir as he is considered a “good Taliban” leader because he does not attack the state. Nazir does shelter al Qaeda and other terror groups, and carries out attacks in Afghanistan.

Several other top al Qaeda leaders have been killed by Predator strikes in Nazir’s territories. One of the most senior al Qaeda leaders killed was Midhat Mursi al Sayyid Umar, better known as Abu Khabab al Masri. Abu Khabab was killed along with four members of his staff in a Predator strike on July 28, 2008. Also killed on Nazir’s turf were Osama al Kini (Fahid Mohammed Ally Msalam), al Qaeda’s operations chief in Pakistan; and Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan, one of al Kini’s senior aides. Both men were wanted by the US for their involvement in the 1998 suicide attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
**
Kashmiri’s death would be a major blow to al Qaeda and allied terror groups in the region. He has been seen as one of the contenders to take command of al Qaeda since the death of Osama bin Laden in a May 2, 2011 raid by US SEALs in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

US intelligence considers Kashmiri to be one of al Qaeda’s most effective commanders. He served as the operational chief of the Harkat-ul Jihad Islami, an al Qaeda-linked group that operates in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh. The Harkat-ul Jihad Islami was designated as a terrorist entity by the US in 2010, and Kashmiri was added to the list of global terrorists for his role in leading HUJI as well as for his links to al Qaeda.

**Kashmiri has also been linked to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, which has viewed him as an asset due to his prowess in fighting the Indians in Jammu and Kashmir. He is said to have been a member of Pakistan’s Special Services Group, although he denied it in an interview with the Asia Times in 2010. One legend attributed to Kashmiri is that he beheaded a sepoy and presented the head to General Pervez Musharraf.
**
In late 2003, Kashmiri was detained by Pakistani police for his alleged role in an attempted assassination of Musharraf, but he was inexplicably released in February 2004. Kashmiri resurfaced in 2007 after the Pakistani military assault on the Lal Masjid in Islamabad and assumed command of Brigade 313. Kashmiri expanded Brigade 313’s leadership cadre and rank and file, bringing in members of terror groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Laskhar-e-Jhangvi, and a host of other terror groups, as well as members of Pakistan’s military and intelligence services.

As the leader of Brigade 313, Kashmiri took little time in turning on select targets in Pakistan. Brigade 313 has been behind many of the high-profile attacks and bombings inside Pakistan, including multiple assassination attempts against former President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Gilani. He also orchestrated the 2009 attack on Pakistani Army General Headquarters in Rawalpindi and the assault on a naval base in Karachi in May 2011.

Kashmiri was involved in the assassination of Major General Faisal Alvi, the retired commander of the Special Services Group, in Rawalpindi in late 2008. Alvi was killed just months after sending a letter to General Ashfaz Pervez Kayani, Pakistan’s top military officer, in which he threatened to expose two Pakistani generals’ involvement with the Taliban. Also, Kashmiri reportedly drafted a plan to assassinate General Kayani, but the plan was canceled by al Qaeda’s senior leadership.

But Kashmiri’s sights were not limited to Pakistan. He is thought to have played a major role in the multi-pronged suicide attack against government and security installations in the eastern Afghan province of Khost in May 2009.

Al Qaeda recognized Kashmiri’s ability, and he was picked to lead the Lashkar al Zil, al Qaeda’s paramilitary Shadow Army, which operates along the Afghan-Pakistani border. Kashmiri took control of al Qaeda’s military forces after its prior leader, Abdullah Sa’ad al Libi, was killed in a US Predator airstrike in late 2008.

Kashmiri was well-suited for the role, as he has long had experience in running camps in the region. “Since 2001, Kashmiri has led HUJI training camps that specialized in terrorist operations, military tactics, and cross-border operations, including a militant training center in Miramshah, North Waziristan,” according to the US Treasury report that added him to the list of specially designated global terrorists.

In 2009, al Qaeda give Kashmiri another top role in the terror network: he was appointed to serve as a member of al Qaeda’s external operations network, which is assigned to strike at targets in the West. Kashmiri has been directly linked to one plot in the West. In January 2010, a US federal grand jury indicted Kashmiri for plotting to attack the Jyllands-Posten newspaper in Denmark for publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

Read more: Top al Qaeda leader Ilyas Kashmiri reported killed in US Predator strike - FDD's Long War Journal

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Rahman Malik has confirmed the killing, the PM has confirmed the killing (he has even claimed that the Americans have confirmed it), whats the problem with Americans our allies, why dont they trust us?

Secondly as I said before that it would have been better if Pakistan had been involved or better still if they had killed him themselves, the article also mentions that it will be another embarrassment for Pakistan after OBL as they did this operation without Pakistani involvement as well. :slight_smile:

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/06/06/pakistan.jihadist.killed/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

‘No confirmation’ al Qaeda figure dead, U.S. Defense spokesman says
By the CNN Wire Staff
June 6, 2011 – Updated 2200 GMT (0600 HKT)

Washington (CNN) – The United States cannot confirm that al Qaeda operational commander Ilyas Kashmiri is dead, Defense Department spokesman Mark Toner said Monday, contradicting Pakistan’s prime minister.
“There’s no confirmation,” Toner told reporters at the Defense Department’s daily briefing.

Kashmiri’s jihadist group, Harakat-ul-Jihad-Islami, previously said Kashmiri was killed, along with some aides, in a strike late Friday night.

On Monday, Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani told reporters, “The U.S. has confirmed that Ilyas Kashmiri was killed on Friday.”

Speaking at a Monday news conference in Quetta, the capital of the country’s southwestern province of Balochistan, Gilani did not explain how he knew the United States had confirmed the death of the man described by counterterrorism officials as al Qaeda’s “military brain.”

But later in Washington, Toner, responding to a reporter’s question, said, “I don’t have any confirmation of that.”

Pressed on whether he was saying the U.S. government could not substantiate the report or that he had no comment, he responded, “I both have no comment and no way of confirming his death.”

**Kashmiri’s death would be the first major kill or capture since the death of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden on May 1, and the highest profile drone target since Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud in 2009.

It could also be seen as an embarrassment for Pakistanis, who would have twice in just over one month had a major al Qaeda figure killed on their territory without their participation.
**
U.S. drones now operate entirely autonomously in Pakistan, a Pakistani intelligence source has told CNN. Whereas before the United States cooperated with Pakistan and used their intelligence, the Americans now have an intelligence network that allows them to go after terrorists unilaterally.

Kashmiri, a veteran jihadist, has been considered one of the most dangerous men in the world by counterterrorism officials on three continents.

He has been commander of “Brigade 313” of Harakat-ul-Jihad-Islami, which formed a close relationship with al Qaeda.

Kashmiri also has been said to have ties with David Coleman Headley, the U.S. citizen who confessed to helping scout targets for the attack in Mumbai, India, in November 2008.

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http://www.dawn.com/2011/06/07/he-said-what.html

He said what?
BY SANA SALEEM ON JUNE 7TH, 2011

“What I can say is there is a 98 per cent chance he is dead,” Interior Minister Rehman Malik said in an official statement confirming Illyas Kashmiri’s death.

Kashmiri, seen as one of the world’s most wanted militant, was reportedly killed in a drone strike earlier this week.** Has nobody asked Mr. Malik the method of deducing such a percentage? Apparently the corpse and DNA report amount for the remaining 2 per cent.** (Since there are way too many perils of wisdom frequently coming in from Mr Interior Minister, let’s just call them “malikisms”)

**“The Corps Commanders were informed about the decision to reduce the strength of US military personnel in Pakistan to the minimum essential,” stated a press release by the ISPR three days after Bin laden was gunned down less than two kilometers away from the premier military academy.

Strength of US military personals in … Pakistan? You read that right. After years of condemnations of the drones, hue and cry over sovereignty, ISPR tells us, that too in a press release after al Qaeda’s chief gets gunned down right under their noses, that there are in fact American boots on the ground. Shock? Horror? Cries of sovereignty?**

**“The drones are given out as an instrument to fight terror. Yet, as we have repeatedly said these attacks constitute a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and are counter-productive,” Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani remarked during his speech in the Parliament, on the death of Osama Bin Laden. **Not to forget that the speech focusing on taking the Parliament and the nation in confidence on speculations surrounding bin Laden’s death was in English. I’m not quite sure who the Prime Minster’s target audience was.

Wait..What’s that about drones and sovereignty when the ISPR just informed us that there are in fact American troops on ground in Pakistan?

“They were wearing black clothes like in Star Wars movies, one with a suicide vest….” You guessed that one. Malikism again. Interior minister Rehman Malik, in an official statement after 17-hours of gun battle at PNS Mehran, that killed 10 security personnels and destroyed two highly expensive P-3C Orion aircraft.

“The unfortunate and tragic death of Syed Saleem Shahzad is a source of concern for the entire nation but the incident should not be used to target and malign the country’s security agencies,” said an ISI official on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the job. An anonymous statement, when they should have been making public announcements condemning the allegations and disassociating themselves from the severe criticism and blame for the killing of a journalist. This statement however, is neither a condemnation nor an obituary — I assume we are just supposed to take their word for it.

“Yes, there has been an intelligence failure. It is not only ours but of all the intelligence agencies of the world,” unanimous statement, echoed from the Prime Minister to the Foreign office to the ISPR — possibly the only statement that could have made more sense had it not been spoken from a defensive fence.

The fact that American forces attacked Afghanistan and still continue to rage war while Osama rested comfortably in a compound in Abbottabad reflects inexcusable failure of intelligence on CIA’s part, but that doesn’t and shouldn’t absolve us from our own failures.

‘The whole world’ as the statement puts it, isn’t reeling from this global war on terror like we are, 180 million people suffering the consequences of decisions they had no control over. Fighting a war they had never opted for; and still being mulled over as living time bombs waiting to explode. We are but invisible victims, such are our woes.

Amid all the chaos, the shame, the grief, irresponsible, inaccurate and dubious official statements cause inconsiderable damage to global perception about Pakistan. We laugh at these statements when in fact this is no laughing matter.

These statements, so callously being passed as ‘official remarks’ after a huge security breach, they lack professionalism, show apathy towards the gravity of the issue and that there seems to be little or no concocted effort to control the messages that go out from the Pakistani authorities to the rest of the world.

Such incoherence in political discourse has deepened the void between the people and state’s institution. While we, the people, speculate on several fallacies of our institutions, we are in return met with rhetoric that is defensive, more than its honest.

The government has long been the target of criticism whether substantial or otherwise, the judicial system has also come under scrutiny and now the one institute, the untouchable, sacred cow — our military and intelligence have also met with demands of accountability. In such a point in time, rather than camouflaging our faults by national interest and security, lets just be honest for once.

But all is not lost; perhaps for starters our many spokesmen could take a lesson from Ambassador Haqqani himself:

“There will always be some senator from Idaho who will turn around and say, why did the Pakistani Prime Minister say that — not realizing that the Pakistanis are a very proud nation, very sort of cognizant and aware of their sovereignty, a nation that acquired nuclear weapons primarily to prove a point, not because anybody — there are crazies who might want to use it, but then there were crazies like that in this country, too; not because anybody does not understand the significance of nuclear weapons but because it had to do with national pride and identity and security and sovereignty. And so that is the real reason why the US-Pakistan relationship looks so complex: a lot happening together, neither side wanting to give up, but neither side being able to fully sort of announce the layers and layers of cooperation, and for that matter, areas of non-cooperation. As the great Richard Holbrooke summarized it: It’s complicated.”

While answering some tough questions regarding the recent series of event in Pakistan, Ambassador Haqqani wasn’t reluctant, inaccurate or malicious. He was articulate, poignant and honest.

I leave you with a last quote, hoping that this sense of articulation reciprocates and echoes far and wide: Our words represent us, they play a vital role in shaping public opinions, let’s manipulate them no more, lest they too, betray us.

Sana Saleem is Co-founder, Director Gawaahi.com and blogs at Global Voices, Asian Correspondent, The Guardian and her personal blog Mystified Justice. She recently won the Best Activist Blogger award by CIO & Google at the Pakistan Blogger Awards. She can be found on Facebook and tweets at twitter.com/sanasaleem.

The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.

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Re: Ilyas Kashmiri Killed?

He may not be dead. HuJI mailed photo of dead body of kashmiri to a news paper which was later proven to be fake.
we have never seen terrorists sending proofs of deaths to ease job of americans. this may be attention diversion tactics.

i have a gut felling that he will surface sooner or later.