Senior al-Qaida operative ‘killed by US missile strike in Pakistan’

Muhammad Ilyas Kashmiri, considered possible successor to Osama bin Laden, believed to be dead after drone attack A senior al-Qaida operative, regarded as one of the most dangerous militants in the world, has been killed in a US missile strike in Pakistan, according to a local intelligence official. The death of Muhammad Ilyas Kashmiri – thought to be a possible successor to Osama bin Laden – was another intelligence coup for the US, after its special forces killed bin Laden in Abbottabad, close to Islamabad on 2 May. “We are sure that he was killed. Now we are trying to retrieve the bodies,” said the Pakistani intelligence official. “We want to get photographs of the bodies.” It is not the first time reports of Kashmiri’s death have surfaced. He was reported to have been killed in a September 2009 US drone strike. Pakistani media said Kashmiri had been killed this time, quoting Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HUJI), the al-Qaida-allied group he headed. “We confirm that our Amir (leader) and commander in chief, Muhammad Ilyas Kashmiri, along with other companions, was martyred in an American drone strike on 3 June 2011, at 11:15pm,” Abu Hanzla Kashir, who identified himself as an HUJI spokesman, said in a statement faxed to a Pakistani television station. “God willing … America will very soon see our full revenge. Our only target is America.” The authenticity of the statement could not be verified. HUJI was behind the March 2006 suicide bombing of the US consulate in Karachi, in which four people were killed and another 48 wounded, the US State Department said. Other intelligence officials said earlier that late on Friday night, a US drone aircraft had fired three missiles at a militant centre in the village of Shwkainary, in South Waziristan, killing a total of eight militants, including five of Kashmiri’s supporters. The Pakistani Taliban, which has strong ties to al-Qaida, said earlier that reports of Kashmiri’s death were false. The US Department of State had described Kashmiri as a “specially designated global terrorist”, adding him to a list of high-profile militants. In March 2010, the US attorney’s office quoted in a statement a Chicago taxi driver charged with sending money to Kashmiri as saying the Pakistani militant told him he “wanted to train operatives to conduct attacks in the United States”. The Pakistani media had speculated that Kashmiri was the mastermind of a militant siege of a naval base last month which humiliated the country’s military. al-Qaida Global terrorism Pakistan guardian.co.uk

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