A US drone strike in Pakistan yesterday killed up to 21 Afghan fighters from the al-Qaeda-linked Haqqani network, considered the top US foe in eastern Afghanistan, authorities said.
Pakistani officials said a US drone fired two missiles, destroying a vehicle and a compound in North Waziristan, the headquarters of the Haqqani leadership and the most infamous militant bastion in the semi-autonomous tribal belt.
“More dead bodies have been dug out of the debris. Twenty-one militants from the Haqqani group were killed and three were injured,” a Pakistani security official said in Peshawar, the largest city in the northwest.
“It was Haqqani’s compound and his fighters were using it as a camp. They used to gather round for midnight food,” said another Pakistani official, referring to Muslims’ pre-dawn meal during the month of Ramadan.
“All those killed were Haqqani’s men and Afghans, but we have reports that some Arabs and Uzbeks were also present at the time of attack and were killed,” the official added on condition of anonymity.
Although the US does not publicly confirm Predator drone attacks, its military and the CIA in Afghanistan are the only forces that deploy the armed, unmanned Predator aircraft in the region.
Washington has called Pakistan’s semi-autonomous northwest tribal region the global headquarters of al-Qaeda, where Taliban and other al-Qaeda-linked networks have rear bases in the 10-year war in Afghanistan.
The Haqqani network is considered the most dangerous enemy of US troops in eastern Afghanistan. It was founded by Jalaluddin Haqqani and is run by his son, Sirajuddin, both designated “global terrorists” by Washington.
The network has been blamed for some of the deadliest anti-US attacks in Afghanistan, including a suicide attack at a US base in the eastern province of Khost in 2009 that killed seven CIA operatives.
Pakistani officials said the missiles struck the Haqqani camp close to Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, at 2:15am.
Some Pakistani officials put the death toll at 18, but acknowledged that more bodies were being dug out of the rubble.
The officials said a pick-up vehicle parked outside the compound was also destroyed.
Residents in Miranshah reported hearing two huge blasts a minute apart as they were waking up for a night-time meal before the dawn-to-dusk Ramadan fast.
One resident said he later saw 16 coffins laid out in the back of vehicles, which were then taken to a nearby graveyard.
Around two dozen drone strikes have been reported in Pakistan since elite US forces killed Osama bin Laden in a suburban home near Pakistan’s main military academy in Abbottabad on May 2.
The raid humiliated Pakistan and prompted allegations of incompetence and complicity in sheltering bin Laden.
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion
UNDER INVESTIGATION: Members of the local Muslim community had raised concerns with the police about the boy, who officials said might have been radicalized online A 16-year-old boy armed with a knife was shot dead by police after he stabbed a man in the Australian west coast city of Perth, officials said yesterday. The incident occurred in the parking lot of a hardware store in suburban Willetton on Saturday night. The teen attacked the man and then rushed at police officers before he was shot, Western Australian Premier Roger Cook told reporters. “There are indications he had been radicalized online,” Cook told a news conference, adding that it appeared he acted alone. A man in his 30s was found at the scene with a stab wound to his back.