The Bajaur airstrike, which occurred around dawn, as people in the camp were preparing for their morning prayers, was conducted by a US Predator and also involved the use of helicopters, according to the well-informed and generally reliable blog, Counterterrorism.org. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a contributor, writes that his information is based on a “military intelligence source” that he does not identify. He writes, “My source is sceptical of speculation that Zawahiri may have been killed in the strike, saying that Zawahiri sightings are a dime a dozen. He says it’s possible that Matiur Rehman was killed, but is also sceptical of that. The strike came just as the Bajaur accords were supposed to take place (similar to the Waziristan deal). Officials within the Pakistani government were supposedly worried when early reports surfaced that Faqir Mohammed may have been killed. | Faqir Mohammed is a Taliban leader in the region who would have been a major signatory to the accords: if he were killed, the Pakistanis wouldn’t know who could enter into the accords with them (or, to put it cynically, they wouldn’t know who they were supposed to surrender to). |
According to the correspondent, “At this point, the Bajaur Accords are on hold. While we will probably see some payback from Al Qaeda and the Taliban, my source noted that there’s not a whole lot more they can do: these groups tried to kill Musharraf less than a month ago, and are already carrying out terrorist attacks in Pakistan. It’s worth noting that Faqir Mohammed also hosted Zarqawi when the US strike missed him back in January, and left before that strike as well. It’s unlikely that Mohammed had advance warning of either the Damadola strike or this one (too many high-value terrorists were killed at Damadola, and Mohammed almost certainly would have alerted them). Some guys are apparently just that lucky.”