“No top Qaeda leader killed in Waziristan drone strike”
Miranshah (Pakistan), Oct 5 : If unidentified field agents and informants of the Pakistan Army are to be believed, the dead in yesterday’s US drone attack in Waziristan did not include any top tier Al Qaeda figure.
According to them, among the 20 dead were eight Arabs and 14 Taliban, including commander Haqqani who had invited the Arabs for a dinner after Eid.
Besides the commander, his father and two young sons were also killed in the attack, said officials.
Six of the Arabs were buried in the village on Saturday morning, while militants took the other two bodies to an undisclosed location, they said.
The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that they had no information indicating that any senior Taliban leader was killed. “We found body parts scattered all over the place in the ruins, someone’s hand, someone’s leg,” the Daily Times quoted Bakht Ali, a villager, as saying.
An intelligence official based in the region said that a woman and three children were among those killed.
Army spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas said that initial reports indicated that 20 or more people were killed and added that there was ‘speculation’ that many were foreign terrorists, but cautioned that the Army was still awaiting a detailed report. (ANI)