The death toll in the missile strike that killed renegade tribal militant and former Taleban commander Nek Mohammad has risen to eight, Pakistan military officials said yesterday. In addition to Nek Mohammad and four tribesmen, three foreign suspects also died in Thursday nightâs attack near Wana, the main town in the frontier region of South Waziristan, military spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan said. âEight people were killed in the attack including Nek and three foreigners,â Sultan told AFP. Officials said a 15-minute satellite phone call by Nek helped pinpoint the tribal leaderâs home where he was hiding.
| Good idea. Compromise your intel source. You'll never need it again, will you? |
| I dunno, we've been playing the same sat phone trick on 'em for a while. |
A laser-guided missile was then fired from an aircraft which struck the house. âHe was talking for a good 15 minutes to someone on his satellite phone when the missile was launched,â an intelligence official said. âWe are trying to determine whom he was talking to,â the official said.
Nek was in the house of tribal leader Sher Zaman, whose two sons also died along with two of Nekâs local allies. Sultan did not disclose the identities or nationalities of the foreign militants killed with Nek.
| Uzbeks? Chechens? Soddies? The usual run of riff-raff, I'd guess... |
Military officials have described Nekâs killing as a major success in the ongoing drive to flush Al-Qaeda-linked foreign militants out of the region. The situation in South Waziristan is fully under the control of security forces, Sultan said when asked if there were any fears of a tribal backlash over the killing. Nek had been a Taleban commander during the hard-line militiaâs five-year rule in Afghanistan and trained Central Asian militants at a garrison just north of Kabul. |