The first US drone strike after Pakistan’s general elections took place on Wednesday May 29 in Miranshah of North Waziristan. It achieved two goals – one killed deputy chief of the Pakistani Taliban Wali ur Rehman, as the Americans have claimed; two it killed in a general sense the plans of Nawaz Sharif to enter into a dialogue with the Taliban.
Sharif has won the mandate on the plank of development and peace. He also promised good relations with the US and India. During the campaign, the Pakistan Taliban targeted the liberal and secular parties and their candidates but spared the leaders of Sharif’s party and Imran Khan’s of PTI party. So there is the possibility of the Taliban seeing the attack as a failure of Sharif even before he formally took over the reins of the country.
Expectedly Pakistan’s Foreign Office reacted strongly to the attack; in a brief statement, Foreign Office spokesman Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry voiced Pakistan government “serious concerns” over the US drone strike. “Pakistan has consistently maintained that the drone strikes are counter-productive, entail loss of innocent civilian lives, have human rights and humanitarian implications and violate the principles of national sovereignty, territorial integrity and international law,” the statement said.
For the United States, which has placed a $5 million bounty on his head, Rehman was a wanted man. He was accused of involvement in the 2009 suicide attack on a US base in Afghanistan that killed seven Americans working for the CIA
The CIA-operated drone plane, acting on ‘inputs’ had targeted with apparent ease the house where Rehman was staying in Chashma Pul area of Miranshah. Three other militants were killed and two injured in the raid.
While Rehman’s death was confirmed by security officials on the basis of information from the field and intercepts of communications between militants, the Taliban spokesman has denied the report as ‘false’. The denial doesn’t come as a surprise. The militants always deny the death of their leader in a drone strike when it takes place but come up with the confirmation after a couple of days after selecting the ‘replacement’.
The killing of Rehman is not the first set back to the Pak Taliban in recent months. Towards end February, a senior commander Maulvi Faqir Mohammad was captured by Afghan intelligence agencies when he and four aides were trying to cross into Pakistan from Nangrahar province. All the four aides, Maulana Hakim, Shahid Khan, Maulvi Turrabi and Fathi Khan were also arrested. These fugitives were captured at Basawal while trying to sneak into Pakistan’s Khyber Agency.
The Maulvi was the deputy to Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Hakimullah Mehsud till 2011. Pakistan officials claim that Maulvi Faqir had escaped army operation in Waziristan in August 2008 and took refuge in Afghanistan’s Kunar province. Going by what the Pakistani officials say, the Maulvi was not alone in the enterprise. ‘There are more such leaders who are hiding in the Pak-Afghan border area’, Pak officials said. .
Maulvi Faqir Mohammad, according to media reports in Pakistan, had become ‘irrelevant’ in the Pakistan Taliban hierarchy for some time. These reports quoting Taliban sources that he was replaced with commander Dadullah, who died in a US drone attack in August 2012 in Kunar province. The Taliban later appointed Said Muhammad as the commander of Bajaur agency. It is also said Maulvi Faqir was not even allowed to participate in the war against Pakistani forces in Batwar area of Bajaur last year. In essence the claim is that Maulvi Faqir is no longer a big fish and his arrest makes no difference to the Pakistan Taliban.
While the claim may ring true, it lends credence to the Afghan claims that wanted Pak militants have been on the Afghan soil actively working against the coalition forces.
