Hayatullah Khan, a local photographer who works for the European Pressphoto Agency, Urdu-language daily Ausaf, and the English-language Nation (Pakistani), took pictures of the metal fragments of the Predator Hellfire missile that killed Al Qaeda Hamza Rabia in the North Waziristan Pakistani village of Asorai outside of the town of Miranshah.
The photos showed fragments that displayed the designation “AGM-114” (Hellfire), words “guided missile” and the initials “US”
Apparently, on Sunday 12/03, he claimed that some intelligence agencies wouldn’t like him taking those photos, since the evidence of a Hellfire conflicts with the official Pakistani line. Officials insist no attack nor American involvement caused Rabia’s death, since he was obviously killed by bomb blasts of his own devices, and most surely not a Hellfire. Nope. (Musharraf Confirms Rabia's Death, and US incursions into Pakistan: Going where they won't)
Maybe Khan meant the Americans, maybe he meant the Pakistani ISI (my bet’s on them). Either way, boy got disappeared on Monday by five masked men with AK’s in Mir Ali, 13 miles from Miranshah.
His brother, Ihsanullah Khan, who reported Khan’s Sunday trepidations, also said that he’d been assured by the Taliban (via a letter.. someone get that return address!) that they weren’t the ones who took him. The Taliban, brother Khan? Yes, those Taliban. Yes, they roll like that in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
(this photo’s from Abdullah Noor, of the AP, not the kidnapped Khan)
If and when I find the pictures in question, I’ll post them here.
Of note, both articles referenced have slightly different content but were written by the same authors, Zulfiquar Ali and Paul Watson. They state, concurring with my opinions of how the Pakistanis view their government:
“U.S. counterterrorism operations in Pakistan are a sensitive political issue for Musharraf, who is under pressure from hard-line Islamic groups and nationalists who feel he has gone too far in supporting the U.S.”
After the Hellfire did away with Hamza Rabia, the Pakistani military sent in some of their guys to do cleanup around 12/07 or 12/08. Musharraf’s been quoted as saying that there’re 70,000 troops in Waziristan and that the authorities are in control.
As with previous Pakistani military attempts to subdue the area, stuff went wrong. Local rebels kidnapped four paramilitary soldiers and killed two of them. The fate of the two others is unknown.
Meanwhile, the Taliban, apparently taking advantage of this latest unrest, grabbed some other rebels of the an opposing group loyal to a rebel named Mohammed Hakim (who's in Pakistani custody) and then promptly beheaded two of them, impaling the heads on poles or hanging the headless bodies upside down from electricity poles, depending on the reports read. The Taliban are trying to show how lawlessness (the Hakim guys were extorting travelers) will be met with greater lawlessness. At least they’re consistent. Reports continue to say that the Taliban are patrolling around Miramshah, Eidak and Hoormaz (villages around Miramshah) in pickups with rockets, AK’s, etc.
“It will be inappropriate to take any action (against militants) now, considering the fact that the militants had tremendous local support in their action against those thugs. Any action against militants might be construed as in support of the bandits,” the official said, seeking anonymity. – Dawn, 12/09/2005
Wednesday, a bomb tore through a school run by a local journalist Dilawar Khan near Wana, South Waziristan. (Karikot area). This Khan writes for the BBC World Service and Pakistan’s “Dawn” newspaper. No one was killed.
Thursday, another explosion in Wana’s Jandola Bazaar killed 12 tribesmen and a few ISI guys.
“Whatever is happening in North Waziristan or South Waziristan, there is no problem. We are in control” – President Musharraf, 12/09/2005
No, sir, you’re not. Allow me to answer my own question about whether the local Waziristani people are ticked at the Americans or the Pakistani cooperation with the Americans – They’re unhappy with you, Mr. Musharraf.
The Arab news service Al Arabiya is claiming that Al Qaeda is denying Rabia's death:
"An official from the Al-Qaeda group has denied, in a telephone conversation with the Al-Arabiya channel, that Hamza Rabia has been killed," a presenter on the Arab satellite channel told viewers.
The Al-Arabiya presenter cited the caller as saying that five people were killed in an explosion in the tribal region but these were two local men, two Tadjiks and an Arab called Suleiman al-Moghrabi. [Can't find anything on this name]
Fox News this morning quotes the National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley
"At this point we are not in a position publicly to confirm that he is dead. But if he is, that is a good thing for the war on terror .. There are conflicting reports as to what happened," he said. "But obviously, the details of these kinds of things are things that is best left for the Pakistanis to talk about." "President Musharraf has been very aggressive in dealing with the Al-Qaeda and Taliban presence in Pakistan," he said.
'We have helped him in terms of providing intelligence and cooperating with his forces, and obviously this (Rabia's death) is something that would be an important thing for Pakistan, an important thing for the United States.'
What's Hadley saying here? Is he trying to downplay it for our consumption or to assuage potential Pakistani blowback?
While the AP is reporting that "Pakistan's information minister [Sheikh Rashid Ahmed] said on Saturday that Hamza Rabia's remains were identified in DNA tests and that the key associate of al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri had died Thursday in a rocket attack near the Afghan border." Ahmed is also quoted as denying that it was a missile that killed Rabia, but a bomb blast of Rabia's own making. [Pak Tribune 12/04/2005]
Musharraf Confirms Rabia's Death
US incursions into Pakistan: Going where they won't
A Newsweek article, Women of Al Qaeda, to be published in their 12/12/2005 issue, profiles the women who’ve recently chosen to become suicide bombers in the name of Islam. This is a summary.
- September, 2005 – Unnamed woman, suicide bomber that killed 5, wounded 30, Tal Afar, Iraq, near Syrian border
- October, 2005 – unnamed woman and husband attack an American patrol in Mosul
- November 9, 2005 - Sajida Mubarak al-Rishawi, 35, the would-be Jordanian bomber whose bomb belt failed to go off while her husband’s, to whom she’d been married for less than a week, did. Her three brothers and sister’s husband died fighting against the Americans.
- November 9, 2005 - Muriel Degauque, 38, blew herself up attacking Iraqi police, Baqubah, Iraq
The article postulates that the use of women suicide bombers will make American soldiers suspicious of women, particularly pregnant women, and searching them “invasively” will create popular anger - "It's a win-win proposition for the terrorists," Mia Bloom author of “Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror”
Recruiting women as suicide bombers is seen as a late stage / entrenched tactic, "It comes when the battle escalates to all sectors of society. It happens after men become activists in guerrilla groups, fight and die, perhaps in suicide attacks. Then the widows or family members —seek vengeance, or want to give their life in the same cause." – Haizam Amirah Fernandz, a Madrid-based analyst. The article as well as Mia Bloom also proposes that the trend of violence is empowering to these women, especially the modern Palestinian ones chosing that route.
Women fighters and terrorists are nothing new, Palestinian women being engaged in attacking Israel since the 1970s. The first suicide bomber, 27 year old Wafa Idris, killed an Israeli civilian and wounded 140 in January, 2002.
The article states that there’s been much religious legal debate as to using women as suicide bombers and not until January 2004 did a Palestinian Hamas woman, Reem al-Riashi, mother of two, carry out a mission.
Religious scholars who endorse suicide attacks have come up with a paradise for women as an alternate to the male bombers popularized “72 virgins” – as related by Thauria Hamur, 26, captured before completing her mission she said women martyrs would “become the purest and most beautiful form of angel at the highest level possible in heaven.”
Groups which've used women suicide bombers:
- Liberation Tigers in Sri Lanka (non-Muslim)
- Chechnya’s “black widows”
- Palistinan “army of roses”
The story's making the rounds and Musharraf's acknowledging the strike, and there's some more info on Rabia's status:
From ITN, 12/03/2005
Rabia's death was confirmed by President Pervez Musharraf as he arrived in Kuwait on an official visit.
He added: "Yes indeed, 200 percent. I think he was killed the day before yesterday if I'm not wrong."
But the Pakistani military has not found the body and are relying on intelligence reports and intercepted messages between al Qaeda members.
Rabia, in his 30s, took over the number three spot, behind bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy Ayman al-Zawahri, after the capture of Abu Faraj Farj al Liby in Pakistan in May, US and Pakistani security officials said.
Rabia was involved in plots to attack the United States and his death was a serious blow for al Qaeda, according to a US counterterrorism official in Washington. [Highlights mine]
200 percent. That's a lot of extra polling, there. I'm waiting for an internal Pakstani poltical backlash on Musharraf's cooperation with the US and probably a bit more effort on the part of Wazristani malcontents to make life difficult for the Pakistani government. Oh, and guys? They're still there, don't stop.
MSNBC has a great picture of "tribesmen" holding a piece of the alleged attacking Hellfire:
Are these guys more pissed at Musharraf for allowing American ordnance to fall on Pakistan or at America for making ordnance rain?
Thanks to Jack for bringing this to my attention.
There's a bunch of info on-line about what attacks Rabia planned against the US. This New Yorker piece from 07/26/2004 The Terror Web is pretty sobering, impling that plans for attacks take years to come to fruition and that the Madrid 3/11 [2004] attacks were planned before 9/11 and would've happened whether or not the Iraq war or Spain's involvement occured.
Also, some of the articles on the net imply that the Al Qaeda computer expert, Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, who was caught in Lahore in mid 2004 along with three laptops had the names of the people who have been targets of the Predators over the last few months. The computer files uncovered in Pakistan contained surveillance information of five financial sites in New York, Washington and Newark, N.J. which caused the raising of our terror alert in August. Time magazine was told that the laptops "[i]ncluded in information obtained on three laptop computers and 51 discs seized in a July 24 raid in Pakistan were details of how al Qaeda operatives thought of using speedboats and divers to carry out attacks in New York harbor before the November presidential election... terrorists have also considered using tourist helicopters in some New York operations."
From a timeline perspective, in June 2004, the Pakistani Army was already failing in Waziristan as Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan was captured. About a year later, Predator drones were flying into Waziristan taking out people listed on those hard drives. A year's lag's not too bad, actually.
Speaking of Al Qaeda hard drives, here's a really neat September 2004 article from Alan Cullinson of the Wall Street Journal in the Atlantic Monthly about the contents of Al Qaeda hard drives he'd gotten his hands on just after the fall of Kabul in 2001 (he'd published a series in '01/'02 in the WSJ with more info). It has transcriptions of a few e-mails from 1998-2001 from Zawahiri to his cells in Yemen, Abu Musab al Suri to OBL, and Mohammed Atef to Zawahiri.
A bit from the 04/11/2001 e-mail from OBL to Mullah Omar congratulating him on destroying the ancient stone Bamiyan Buddahs: "Among the most important such false gods in our time is the United Nations, which has become a new religion that is worshipped to the exclusion of God. The prophets of this religion are present in the UN General Assembly … The UN imposes all sorts of penalties on all those who contradict its religion."
We're finally going after Al Qaeda where they've been hanging out since Tora Bora - In Pakistan.
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Top al-Qaida officer reportedly killed MSNBC, 12/03/2005
Hamza Rabia, an Egyptian Al Qaeda ["Nawaab" or "Nawab"], planner of assassination attempts on Musharraf 12/14/2003, 12/25/2003, and chief deputy to Abu Faraj al-Libbi, was killed in a Predator drone attack on a safehouse in Asorai/Asoray, a suburb of Mir Ali, North Waziristan, Pakistan. Mir Ali's about 20 miles from the Afghanistan border and North Waziristan's most likely where Al Qaeda and the Taliban have been having free reign under the aegis of Pakistani sovereignty.
Rabia was killed along with 2 Pakistanis and 2 other Arabs in between 1:45a and 2a, local time, Thursday. Witness claim there were an unknown number of missiles, identifiable via the US markings on the debris, even though the Predator carries only two Hellfires and the Wikipedia reference picture doesn't seem to have a bunch of markings.
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Early last month, around 11/05, the Guardian reported that suspected Arab militants accdentally blew themselves up while making bombs in a tribal village named Mosaki, 12 miles east of Miranshah, North Waziristan. Miranshah happens to be just about 12 miles west of Mir Ali so, since I can't find Mosaki on a map, I'm assuming it's a suburb of Mir Ali.
The above MSNBC article refers to this "accidental blast" as a failed Predator drone attempt on the late Hamza Rabia.
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On May 9, 2005, Pakistan's Dawn newspaper reported that two people were killed when a carbomb went off in Toorikhel, a suburb of Mir Ali. One was Samiullah Khan, a local warlord, and the other body was burned beyond recognition. The Washington Post reported on 05/15 that a Predator drone took out Haitham al-Yemeni, an Al Qaeda deputy of Abu Faraj al-Libbi in the suburb of Toorikhel. MSNBC reports that Pakstan denies that a Predator attack took place. Note the Pakistani media's emphasis here - local warlord who causes trouble eliminated but Al Qaeda, who're seen as a US priority, not mentioned.
That's 3 Predator attacks within a fairly narrow 20 mile distance from the Afghani border (and about 120 miles SE from Kabul) on Al Qaeda operatives within the last 8 months or so. Predator attacks, each time explained first by Pakistani press as "accidents" with no mention of US attacks on Pakistani soil. Musharraf's got to be nervous back in Islamabad if the people get word that we're flying drones and shooting 5 foot long missles of death everywhere. His people seem to have been able to capture Abu Musab al Suri in Quetta, Balochistan province, but that's not Waziristan. Musharraf's taking his time with "cleaning up" the Waziristans.
The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (North and South Waziristan are two of 7, 20% of which span Afghanistan's border) are essentially not under any of Pakistan's control and have always been very, very pro Al Qaeda and Taliban. Over these last three years, the areas have been a source of untameable unrest for Musharraf (ariana, an Afghani publication). Gunfight at the Waziriztan Corral, by Kaushik Kapisthalam in April 2004 notes:
On March 17th, the local administration decided to send in about 700 Frontier Corps paramilitary troops to confront the fighters holed up in a village called Kalosha, near Wana. But apparently a smaller number of heavily armed locals and foreign fighters ambushed the government troops, killing at least 15 and taking dozens of paramilitaries and civil officials hostage. After this, regular Pakistan Army troops were dispatched to cordon off the area, but the militants were able to break the cordon and escape with the vehicles and arms belonging to government forces.
Many credible reports talk of wholesale switching of sides by the Frontier Corps soldiers. In addition, tribal antipathy to the Pakistani army spread to other agencies as well. There is also a report that said “150 soldiers of the army and paramilitary forces refused to take part in the action, including at least one colonel and a major.”
And in May 2004's Pakistan's Papier-Mache Army
In a nutshell, around 10,000 men from Pakistan army’s XI Corps, supported by artillery and attack helicopters as well the local Frontier Corps paramilitaries bungled a simple mop up operation in their own tribal zone against a few hundred lightly armed tribal fighters. The Pakistani troops lost at least 150 troops, gave up many hostages and created a cordon that was more like a sieve, allowing the fighters to slip away.
And in June 2004, from Strategypage.com
After a lot of pressure from the US, Pakistan decided to target militant bases in South Waziristan. Under the overall command of the Peshawar based XI Corps of the Pakistan Army (PA), the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) was first sent into the region in March 2004. The initial push was aimed at a militant strong hold at Kaloosha village just outside Wana, the provincial capital of South Waziristan and minutes from a major Pakistan army base. Some 2,000 FC troops belonging to the South Waziristan Scouts (SWS) were sent on a probing raid. It was a disaster. The militants, backed up by tribals, estimated to be around 200, were able to corner the SWS in a classic guerilla trap. The army quickly moved a regular army brigade, Special Service Group (SSG) commandos with Artillery and AH-1 Cobra helicopter support, to rescue the trapped SWS men. When the smoke cleared the militants were found to have escaped with a dozen army hostages (some of whom were later executed). Western reports said that the PA lost some 150 men in the Kaloosha debacle, while managing to eliminate some 25 rebels most of whom appeared to be locals.
And Iraq's likened to Vietnam. That incident was headed up by 27 year old Nek Mohammed, South Waziristan's own Afghani/Taliban veteran and local hero. Shortly after the Pakistani Army's retreat, in June 2004, a Predator drone idled by and killed him. The Pakistani Army publicly took credit for that, too.
US 'concern' at Pakistan strategy, BBC News, 05/03/2004
Lieutenant-General David Barno said Pakistan must eliminate a "significant number" of militants along the border. "There are foreign fighters in those tribal areas who will have to be killed or captured," he said.
Night raid kils Nek, four other militants: Wana operation, DAWN 06/19/2004
Musharraf worried about Wana operation fallout, DAWN, 06/21/2004
The fun thing about this "soft border" with Afghanistan is that Musharraf said this, May 17, 2005: “Soft borders are not a solution” ... with regards to Kashmir and India. Sure is looking like it is, for us. If Musharraf can't go successfully into those areas, the least we can do is toss a few missles over there and have Al Qaeda run into areas where Musharraf can throw out a net.
Added bonus: Locations of some of the cities mentioned 
Waziristan map courtesy of the BBC, Some references taken from CRS Report to Congress: Terrorism in South Asia, August 2005; Locations from Falling Rain Genomics
Belgian Woman Identified As an Iraq Bomber, Guardian/AP, 12/01/2005
"Authorities have identified a woman who carried out a suicide attack against a U.S. patrol in Iraq as a 38-year-old Belgian who had two marriages to radical Muslim men"
"[Muriel Degauque was so nice] but began to change when she married an Algerian man and turned to Islamic fundamentalism."
"After marrying her second husband - a Moroccan man - authorities said Degauque became a member of a terror cell that embraced al-Qaida's ideology." [Issam Goris]
Le récit du parcours de la kamikaze belge!, La Dernière Heure (see the cover as pdf , read Google's translation) - The Belgian paper with an expose on Degauque (also, source of picture, right)
Algeria's got a definite historical AQ connection and so does Morocco, what with the recent Spanish trial of terrorist suspects. More soon.