The Reaper Strikes Again In Pakistan

A US airstrike inside Pakistan has killed a major liaison between the Taliban and al Qaeda.

A major Al-Qaeda operative of Arab origin was among six militants killed overnight in a suspected US missile strike in northwest Pakistan, a senior security official told AFP Wednesday.

Security sources identified the militant as Abdullah Azam al-Saudi, a senior member in Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network.

"He was a senior commander of Al-Qaeda and was involved in recruiting and training of fighters," the senior official said.

According to US intelligence shared with Pakistan, al-Saudi was the main link between Al-Qaeda's senior command and Taliban networks in the Pakistani border region, an Islamabad-based senior security official said.

The US uses Predator UAVs to target al Qaeda (sometimes the enhanced Predators known as Reapers), but this is the first time that one of these strikes took place outside the border provinces.

Dawn said the attack occurred in the Hindi Khel region of Bannu, while Reuters claimed the strike was in Jani Khel. The Hellfire missiles launched from the Predator is said to have hit a compound owned by a "tribesman" named Sakhi Mohammad. The Taliban often host al Qaeda meeting and shelter members in their fortress-like compounds in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

Bannu, a Frontier Region, is outside of Pakistan's tribal areas. Bannu borders the Taliban-controlled North and South Waziristan tribal areas to the east. According to US intelligence officials and reports from the region, Bannu is effectively under Taliban control.

UPDATE:
In a further sign of closer coordination between Pakistan and NATO and the US, NATO forces fired artillery at Taliban targets inside Pakistan with Pakistan's assent.

NATO troops in eastern Afghanistan fired 20 artillery rounds at insurgents inside Pakistan in an attack the alliance said was coordinated with the government in Islamabad.

Meanwhile, clashes in both nations killed at least 25 people, officials said Tuesday, including seven left dead after Taliban militants elsewhere in Pakistan's northwest attacked pro-government tribal elders.

Pakistan and foreign forces in Afghanistan have stressed the need for coordination in battling al-Qaida and Taliban militants that nest on both sides of the frontier. Pakistani coordination with foreign troops in the region, while not unusual, is nonetheless a sensitive subject because of strong local opposition to the presence of Western troops.

The military alliance said it fired the rounds Sunday after insurgents attacked its troops in Afghanistan's eastern Paktika province with rockets from across the border.