Ilyas Kashmiri 'killed' in US drone attack: report

sukhish

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HUJI releases photograph of Ilyas Kashmiri after death, but it isn't him


Left: a purported photograph of Ilyas Kashmiri after his death. The picture is actually that of Abu Dera Ismael Khan, a Lashkar-e-Taiba fighter who was one of the members of the suicide assault team that attacked Mumbai, India, in November 2008. Right: Ilyas Kashmiri before his death. The image on the left is published courtesy of the SITE Intelligence Group.

Read more: Questions emerge over HUJI's statement on al Qaeda leader Ilyas Kashmiri's death - The Long War Journal






Questions emerge over HUJI's statement on al Qaeda leader Ilyas Kashmiri's death

I simply don't feel comfortable about this news. something is fishy here. right after his death the HUJI releases a fax stating that he is dead. now what is that ?
 

chex3009

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This shows credibility of Long War Journal's Reporting standards.

After this report, it can be said that the 2% was purposely left out by Pak Home Minister so that they can play both sides.

Kashmiri's death casts a shadow now, He was an asset to ISI for their India plans, and he was after something big like the BS stuff "Ghazwa-E-Hind" and all that rubbish, but he isn't dead by any means.

Questions are also raised that why would a terrorist organization like HuJI would be so quick in confirming their leaders death.
 

sukhish

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This shows credibility of Long War Journal's Reporting standards.

After this report, it can be said that the 2% was purposely left out by Pak Home Minister so that they can play both sides.

Kashmiri's death casts a shadow now, He was an asset to ISI for their India plans, and he was after something big like the BS stuff "Ghazwa-E-Hind" and all that rubbish, but he isn't dead by any means.

Questions are also raised that why would a terrorist organization like HuJI would be so quick in confirming their leaders death.
dead on,
it was said that HuJI has sent a fax, as if they were waiting to hit the send button after the drone strike. they bastards lie every time .
 
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U.S., Pakistan authorities dispute militant's death | Reuters


U.S., Pakistan authorities dispute militant's death

(Reuters) - U.S. and Pakistani authorities disagree sharply over claims that senior al Qaeda leader Ilyas Kashmiri was killed in a recent missile strike, officials from both countries said on Monday, suggesting sharp strains persist between authorities in Washington and Islamabad.

Two days ago, intelligence officials in Pakistan claimed that Kashmiri, a figure in both al Qaeda and a Pakistan-based affiliate, was killed by a U.S. drone-borne missile in northwestern Pakistan.

Pakistani officials subsequently issued a series of statements about Kashmiri's death. The nation's interior minister told reporters on Monday: "I can confirm 100 percent that he is dead. I got this information this morning."

But U.S. officials familiar with counterterrorism activities in the region said they still were unable to confirm Kashmiri's death.

It was more likely than not, they said Monday evening, that the militant leader was still alive.

"It wouldn't be the first time that reports of his death have been wrong," one U.S. official told Reuters. "We're simply unable at this time to confirm reports of Kashmiri's demise. Our working assumption is that he's still walking around."

A second U.S. official said government experts believed it was more likely that Kashmiri was alive, though they are not ruling out the possibility he was killed in a drone strike.

The U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity.

The conflicting assessments from Washington and Islamabad indicate relations between the United States and Pakistan, which hit a low point after the U.S. killing of Osama bin Laden last month in Pakistan, remain deeply troubled despite claims by both countries that they were improving.

US DOUBTS

Kashmiri was wrongly reported to have been killed in a September 2009 drone strike. It is difficult to confirm the identities of people killed in drone strikes because they occur in remote areas not accessible to foreign journalists.

A Pakistani television station quoted the group that Kashmiri headed, an al Qaeda affiliate called Harkat-ul Jihad Islami, confirming his death. Britain's Channel 4 News said the death had been confirmed by a senior HUJI commander and close aide of Kashmiri.

However, the SITE Institute, a U.S.-based private group that monitors and translates messages posted on militant websites, on Monday cast doubt on an Internet photo said to be of Kashmiri's dead body and an accompanying fax from HUJI confirming his death.

The U.S. group said it actually appeared to be the body of another militant, Abu Dera Ismail Khan, who was killed in the militant attacks on Mumbai, India, in November 2008.

Diplomatic relations between the United States and Pakistan have suffered since last year, when the name of the CIA station chief in Pakistan was leaked to local media and the American official, who was supposed to be operating undercover, had to leave the country.

Relations worsened considerably after the arrest, and later release, of a CIA security contractor who had killed two Pakistani nationals in what the United States said was an armed robbery attempt. Then, U.S. Navy SEALS killed bin Laden without giving advance notice to Pakistani authorities.

Ilyas Kashmiri, said to be a former Pakistani military officer, was high on a list Washington gave Pakistan of militants it wanted captured or killed, a Pakistani official said on condition of anonymity.

The State Department has labeled Kashmiri a "specially designated global terrorist."

(Additional reporting by Michael Georgy in Pakistan; Editing by Doina Chiacu)
 

The Messiah

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I had doubts myself thats why I didn't post something celebrating it.
 

Sikh_warrior

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Death of a quintessential Jihadi


Within five weeks of the Abbottabad raid that killed Osama bin Laden, a CIA drone has cut short the life of Muhammad Ilyas Kashmiri, a top al Qaeda commander and possible successor to its slain founder.

A veteran of all four 'Jihads' waged in South Asia – two in Afghanistan, one in India and one in Pakistan – Kashmiri was a quintessential Jihadi whose life followed a trajectory that encompasses the history of project jihad in Pakistan. Starting his career from the Afghanistan war, he rose to a legendary status in the Kashmir insurgency before returning to the Pak-Afghan border to join al Qaeda and finally turning the gun on his own people and military.

We do not know how he was recruited to fight in Afghanistan but we can guess that he was enlisted by a religio-political party like the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) that was actively involved in the process. As a young man in his twenties, Kashmiri showed his promise on the front by becoming a mining expert – a skill that helped him become an instructor to the Mujahideen.

Qazi Hussain Ahmad, the former head of JI, once explained to me that the real significance of Afghan Jihad against the Soviets lay in the fact that it was Ummul Jihad (Mother of many Jihads). Amongst the numerous children of the Afghan Jihad, the Jihad in Kashmir was the first born. In 1992, the Mujahideen overran Kabul and the Peshawar Accord was signed for power sharing. Around this time, Kashmir became the most important Jihadi battleground. The JI, once again leading the recruitment drive, came up with an innovative slogan that captured the dominant Jihadi spirit of the time: "Ham Jashn-e-Kabul mana chukay, ab aao chalo Kashmir chalain" (We have celebrated our victory in Kabul, Let's go to Kashmir now).

Though a number of Afghan veterans like Kashmiri moved to the new warfront, the Kashmir Jihad produced a whole new crop of Jihadis, comprising mostly of school or college drop-outs from lower middle class background. Contrary to the JI slogan, the Jashan (festival) in Kabul did not end the bloodshed. Nor did it end the Jihad in Afghanistan that continued simultaneously. In fact, the Jihad heated up on a third front with sectarian becoming rife in Pakistan. Some Jihadi organisations worked on all the three fronts and Kashmiri was affiliated with one such organisation.

He joined the Kashmir chapter of Harkatul Jihad-i-Islami (HJI), headed by Qari Saifullah in 1991, and later formed his own 313 Brigade within HJI after he fell out with the latter. These organisations alongside some other jihadi outfits were so close to the Taliban that their fighters were called the Pakistani Taliban or Punjabi Taliban while serving in Afghanistan. In Pakistan, many of them actively indulged in sectarianism.

In Kashmir, the Jihadis were faced with a very large and ruthless army and they were often able to outdo the enemy in ferocity. A Lashkar-e-Taiba (LT) fighter once explained to me smilingly how it was useful to mutilate and disembowel the body of an India solider to "instill fear in the heart of the infidels". I also met a young fighter at the annual congregation of LT who was named Abu Haibat (father of terror) because he had brought from Kashmir the ultimate Jihad trophy – the severed head of an India solider.

According to news reports, Ilyas Kashmiri also ambushed an Indian post and brought back the head of an Indian solider after a village on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control was attacked by Indian soldiers. This, according to Hamid Mir, the famous journalist and anchor, turned him into a blue eyed boy of General Pervez Musharraf who also gave him a cash award for bravery.

With 9/11 and subsequent US attack on Afghanistan, the story of Jihad and life of Kashmiri took a decisive and a whole new turn. The tap on Kashmir Jihad was turned off without making any effort to integrate thousands of young men who had been militarily trained, who were ideologically motivated and who lacked any marketable skills to start new lives. Alongside his 313 Brigade and many other fighters, Kashmiri joined hands with al Qaeda, vowing to fight USA and the state of Pakistan. He soon rose to a level of prominence and notoriety that he had never enjoyed before.

The list of attacks in which Kashmiri's hand is suspected is long. He was accused of trying to murder Musharraf in 2003 and later his name was linked to numerous attacks in Pakistan and abroad including an attack on the US consulate in Karachi and the Mumbai attacks in 2008. Once considered an asset himself, days before his death Kashmiri inflicted the most serious peace time damage to Pakistan's defence assets by organising an attack on the PNS Mehran in Karachi. According to US officials, he was al Qaeda's military operations chief in Pakistan and carried a head money of $5 million.

Though his links with the Special Services Group remain unverified to date, it is ironical that Kashmiri, who joined a CIA-sponsored jihad in Afghanistan in the 80s, was killed by a Hellfire missile fired from a CIA drone on June 3, 2011. Leaving behind a path of death and destruction, Kashmiri will go down in the annals of history as the home boy of terrorism.

Zaigham Khan is a journalist and policy analyst. He heads Civic Action Resources, an Islamabad based development consultancy.


Death of a quintessential Jihadi | | DAWN.COM
 

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