The AP is reporting today that Pakistani officials are saying that there were al Qaeda operatives killed or believed to be killed in the Damadola bombing:

  • Midhat Musri al-Sayid Umar aka Abu Khabab al Masri, 52, Egyptian, explosives and poisons expert, suspected of training the suicide bombers who killed 17 soldiers in the USS Cole attack, 2000 (info from seattle post-intelligencer)
  • Abu Obaidah al-Masri, an al Qaeda chief responsible for attacks against US troops in eastern Afghanistan
  • Abdul Rehman al-Maghribi, Moroccan, a relative of Zawahiri, possibly son-in-law, who distributed PR statements, cds, and videos and kept in contact with Arab journalists - a possible source for a Zawahiri videotape trackback
  • Khalid Habib, another al Qaeda chief in charge of the Afghan-Pakistani border, who was invovled in the planning of an assassination attempt on Musharraf and was associated with Abu Farraj al-Libbi - another Musharraf assassination planner taken out by Hellfire, hmm: pattern?

As per usual, not all sources quote the full AP article (by Munir Ahmad), so here're two interesting paragraphs left off ABC News's reporting:

"Provincial authorities said al-Qaida sympathizers took the bodies of the foreign militants believed to have been killed to bury them in the mountains near the Afghan border, thereby preventing their identification.

Pakistani Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the bodies may have been taken by a local pro-Taliban cleric, Maulana Faqir Mohammed, who also is being hunted by authorities. Authorities believe he and another prominent pro-Taliban cleric survived the attack Friday."

Since there aren't any reports about new martyrs from the jihadi sites, one can't be sure if this is pr to cool off the foreign press (like ours) who'll more or less ignore acts like this if it's in the scope of actually killing al Qaeda members.

Here's a quote from Xinhua's news agency more or less claiming the same thing:

But National Assembly member from Bajur Sahibzada Haron ur Rashid rejected the government claim and media reports about the killing of foreigners and said only locals died in the attack.

"Reports about the killing of foreigners are being spread to mislead the public opinion to cool down anger among the local people," he said.

Again, my belief is that Musharraf has internal issues to resolve, particularly his PR with the local people, and the struggle between his ISI and military, in allowing this footprint-less encroachment of sovereignty. Another theory is that Musharraf's in holding pattern - keeping a tenuous balance between his constituents, military, and political party - that's allowing the US to go after Al Qaeda with the least amount of blood on Musharraf's hands. My opinion is that the internal turmoil's going to get the best of him and without successes on our part, we'll further lose Al Qaeda within the folds of Pakistan.

Top al-Qaida Operatives Believed Killed, ABC News/AP, 01/19/2006
Update 14: Top al-Qaida Operatives Believed Killed, Forbes, 01/19/2006
Pakistan probing reports of al-Qaeda members' death, Xinhua, 01/19/2006


Pakistani tribal villagers offer prayers at graves of people who were killed by U.S. strikes in Damadola on Saturday Jan 14, 2006 in the Pakistani tribal area of Bajour. Pakistani intelligence agents were hunting Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2006 for the graves of four al-Qaida militants believed killed in a U.S. missile strike whose bodies were reportedly whisked away by their comrades who survived, officials said. (AP Photo/Mohammad Zubair)

Supporter of Pakistani religious party Jamat-i-Islami takes part in an anti-U.S. rally Thursday, Jan. 19, 2006 in Peshawar, Pakistan to condemn last week U.S. airstrikes in the Pakistani tribal territory of Bajour which killed 18 people. An al-Qaida explosives and chemical weapons expert and a relative of the terror network's No. 2 leader were among three top operatives believed killed in a U.S. missile strike, Pakistani security officials said. (AP Photo /Mohammad Zubair)