ISLAMABAD, Feb 19, (Agencies): A brother of Afghan warlord Sirajuddin Haqqani, whose al-Qaeda-linked network is fighting in Afghanistan, has been killed in a US missile attack in Pakistan, a senior official said Friday.
The death of Mohammed Haqqani, who was himself an active fighter, in an attack thought to have been targeting his brother will be a symbolic blow to the Haqqani leadership and a further boost for the controversial US drone war.
He died when a US plane fired two missiles into a compound and vehicle on Thursday in the Dandey Darpa Khel area of North Waziristan, a Haqqani bastion in the lawless tribal belt on the Afghan border, a Pakistani official said.
His brother Sirajuddin commands the Haqqani network, which is affiliated to the Afghan Taleban and al-Qaeda, from his father, well-known Soviet resistance commander Jalaluddin Haqqani.
“Mohammed Haqqani, son of Jalaluddin Haqqani, was killed in yesterday’s attack along with two foreign operatives and a local tribesman,” the senior Pakistani security official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“Mohammed was not actively involved in the movement but his place was used as a hideout for Arab foreign militants,” the official added.
A source affiliated to the Haqqani network said only that: “yesterday the attack targeted the family of Jalaluddin Haqqani”.
Haqqani was killed one day after Pakistan confirmed the arrest of Afghan Taleban second-in-command Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, which analysts said could signal a new phase in Islamabad’s often-prickly relationship with the US.
Officials in Washington have hailed the drone campaign for eliminating a number of high-value targets in terrain classified as an intelligence black hole and which al-Qaeda has turned into its global headquarters.
The covert US drone war against al-Qaeda and Taleban leaders has focused increasingly on North Waziristan, a bastion of multiple militant groups, since a December 30 suicide attack killed seven CIA employees in Afghanistan.
North Waziristan borders Khost province, where a Jordanian doctor turned al-Qaeda double agent blew himself up in the deadliest attack on the US spy agency in 26 years.
An intelligence official in Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, told AFP on Thursday that four militants were killed by the missiles, including three Afghans attached to the Haqqani network.
The network is known for staging attacks on US and NATO troops in Afghanistan and Washington has been pressing Islamabad to get tough on such groups that use Pakistani soil to launch strikes over the border.
US officials increasingly believe that Hakimullah Mehsud, leader of the Pakistani Taleban, perished in a US attack last month.
However, there has been no official confirmation from the Pakistani government and the Pakistani Taleban insist he is alive.
His predecessor Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a similar attack in August.
Jalaluddin Haqqani has had close links with Pakistani intelligence, notably the military’s main Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.
US ally Pakistan officially objects to the drone strikes, saying they are a violation of its sovereignty and fuel anti-US feeling which complicates Pakistan’s efforts against militancy.
But at least some strikes are carried out with the consent of Islamabad, in particular those on Pakistani Taleban militants fighting the state.
The latest missile strike came a day after Pakistan confirmed the arrest of the Afghan Taleban’s top miliary strategist, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in the city of Karachi this month.
The Haqqani faction does not launch attacks in Pakistan but sends fighters across the border into Afghanistan from its stronghold in lawless North Waziristan.
The United States has stepped up missile strikes in North Waziristan since a Jordanian suicide bomber killed seven CIA employees at a US base across the border in the Afghan province of Khost in late December.
Separately, two pro-Taleban militants suspected of involvement in several high-profiles attacks in Pakistan were killed in a shootout with police in the central city of Faisalabad after they refused to surrender.
“They plotted more attacks. They opened fire on police when we intercepted them. Both of them have been killed,” senior police official Sarfraz Falki told Reuters.