Latest Drone Strike Targets Haqqani: Officials Say It's Not Clear if Powerful Taliban Leader Was Hit
In the latest of a flurry of moves against top Taliban leaders in recent weeks, U.S. unmanned aircraft launched a strike Thursday against a convoy of vehicles believed to be carrying Sirajuddin Haqqani, the powerful leader of Pakistani Taliban forces in eastern Afghanistan, where American casualties have been highest.
In the latest of a flurry of moves against top Taliban leaders in recent weeks, U.S. unmanned aircraft launched a strike Thursday against a convoy of vehicles believed to be carrying Sirajuddin Haqqani, the powerful leader of Pakistani Taliban forces in eastern Afghanistan, where American casualties have been highest.
U.S. and Pakistani officials say they don’t have confirmation that Haqqani was actually in one of the vehicles that was struck, but initial intelligence reports indicate that he might have been. “He was targeted as part of a strike, and we think he might have been hit, but I’m waiting for the DNA tests. We’ve been trying to kill him for a long time, and he’s escaped before,” a senior Pakistani official told NEWSWEEK. A Taliban official in the region said he too believes that Haqqani was the target of the strike, but “whether or not he was in the car is not clear yet.” There were reports that two missiles had been fired; one at a compound, another at a vehicle.
Believed to be in his late 20s or early 30s with a bushy black beard, Haqqani leads the Taliban insurgency from bases in the ungoverned tribal area of Waziristan in mountainous northwestern Pakistan.
If confirmed, the death of Haqqani would mark another in a stunning series of successes against the Taliban leadership in Pakistan timed with the U.S. offensive across the border in southern Afghanistan. Just last week, U.S. and Pakistani forces arrested Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s military commander and the deputy to Mullah Mohammed Omar, the shadowy Afghan Taliban leader. NEWSWEEK reported this week that Mullah Abdul Salam, described as the Taliban movement’s “shadow governor” of Afghanistan’s Kunduz province, was taken into custody about a week ago. It was not immediately clear if the attempted strike on Haqqani was related to intelligence obtained from those earlier captures.
U.S. officials say that they believe that another top Taliban leader in Pakistan, Hakimullah Mehsud, was killed in a missile strike in January, possibly along with his deputy, Qari Hussain Mehsud. Hakimullah Mehsud was believed to be one of the planners of the Qaeda suicide bombing that killed seven CIA employees and a Jordanian intelligence officer on Dec. 30, 2009. Last August another drone strike killed Baitullah Mehsud, Hakimullah’s predecessor and the man considered the source of most of the suicide bombers deep inside Pakistan, and who may have been behind the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
Haqqani is the son of Maulvi Jalaluddin Haqqani, an aging, ailing former Afghan mujahedin commander who became legendary leading the fight against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s. U.S. military officials told NEWSWEEK in 2008 that under Sirajuddin Haqqani's leadership, his network had developed from small-unit, small-arms tactics into a major force amounting to some 7,000 to 10,000 insurgents in eastern Afghanistan.
In recent years Pakistani inaction had allowed the Haqqanis to grow from one insurgent group among many into perhaps the deadliest threat to U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Beginning in 2008, top U.S. military and CIA officers began confronting their Pakistani counterparts with evidence of links between Haqqani and the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence service, which once viewed some extremist groups as strategic assets. National-security adviser Jim Jones, among other senior U.S. officials, have recently redoubled the pressure on their counterparts at the top of the Pakistani security apparatus, including Army Chief of Staff Ashfaq Kayani, to crack down in coordination with President Obama’s Afghan offensive.
It was not immediately clear why the Pakistanis appear to be cooperating much more than they had in the past. However, the Pakistani government has grown more and more concerned about the danger to its own stability from extremist forces it once thought it could control. Pakistani officials may also want a greater say in forging a political solution in Afghanistan once the U.S. offensive is over.
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Sami Yousafzai is Newsweek's correspondent in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he has covered militancy, al Qaeda, and the Taliban for the magazine since 9/11. He was born in Afghanistan but moved to Pakistan with his family after the Russian invasion in 1979. He began his career as a sports journalist but switched to war reporting in 1997.
Mark Hosenball joined Newsweek as an investigative correspondent in November 1993, covering a range of issues for the National Affairs department. Most recently, he has written and reported numerous stories on terrorism and the Sept. 11 attacks on America. He has also covered campaign finance, the Monica Lewinsky controversy, the death of Princess Diana, Whitewater, the crashes of EgyptAir flight 990 and TWA flight 800, as well as related air safety issues.
Hosenball came to Newsweek from "Dateline NBC," where he worked as an investigative producer. He also worked extensively as a print journalist, writing for a number of British and American publications, including the London Sunday Times, the London Evening Standard, Time Out, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Republic. In addition, he has done commentaries for American Public Radio.
Hosenball has been honored with a number of prestigious awards. Most recently, along with a team of Newsweek correspondents, he was awarded the Overseas Press Club's most prestigious honor, the 2002 Ed Cunningham Memorial Award for best magazine reporting from abroad for Newsweek's coverage of the war on terror. His reporting and that of his colleagues earned Newsweek the prestigious National Magazine Award for General Excellence in 2002 for its coverage of September 11 and its aftermath. And a story he co-authored was highlighted in a citation Newsweek received by the White House Correspondents' Association when it awarded the magazine the 2002 Edgar A. Poe Award for "excellence on a story of national or regional importance. "Newsweek's September 11 coverage started long before the attacks. An article in the magazine's February 19, 2001 issue warned with chilling accuracy: 'The threat posed by (Osama) bin Laden is growing -- and coming ever closer to home."
Hosenball was a contributor to the CANAL + TV documentary, "L'Argent de la Drogue" (Drug Money), which was awarded the "Sept D'Or," the French equivalent of an Emmy. He also contributed to NBC News' coverage of the BCCI scandal, which earned a 1991 Peabody Award.
He attended the University of Pennsylvania and Trinity College in Dublin. He lives in the Washington, D.C. area with his wife and son.
Michael Hirsh covers international affairs for NEWSWEEK reporting on a range of topics from Homeland Security to postwar Iraq. He co-authored the November 3, 2003 cover story, "Bush's $87 Billion Mess," about the Iraq reconstruction plan. The issue was one of three that won the 2004 National Magazine Award for General Excellence.
Hirsh writes a column on Newsweek.com entitled "The World from Washington" focusing on foreign policy issues and serves as Washington Web Editor for Newsweek. He also edited NEWSWEEK's "Issues 2007" special issue, which explores all facets and issues of globalization.
Hirsh was the magazine's Foreign Editor from January 2001 to January 2002, and helped guide Newsweek's award-winning coverage of the September 11 attacks and the war on terror. Before that he was a Senior Editor/Chief Diplomatic Correspondent in the Washington bureau, writing about foreign affairs and international economics. Hirsh was also managing editor for the Newsweek International special issue "ISSUES 2001," the second in a series of three annual reviews of the global economy in the new century.
From September 1998 to December 1999, as Diplomatic Correspondent, Hirsh covered foreign policy, the State Department and the Treasury. He moved to the Washington D.C. bureau in May 1997, previously serving as a senior editor of Newsweek International, covering the same beat.
Prior to joining NEWSWEEK in October 1994 as a New York-based senior writer, Hirsh served as the Tokyo-based Asia Bureau Chief for Institutional Investor from 1992 to 1994. Previously, he was a correspondent for the Associated Press in Tokyo and a National Editor in New York.
Hirsh was co-winner of the 2002 Ed Cunningham Award for best magazine reporting from abroad for Newsweek's terror coverage and contributed to the team of Newsweek reporters who earned the magazine the prestigious 2002 National Magazine Award for General Excellence, also for the magazine's coverage of the war on terror. Hirsh also won a Deadline Club Award in 1997 for investigative reporting on his expose of the IRS's abusive practices, and was one of five finalists for a 1994 Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism for his article, "China's Financial Revolutionaries." It profiled the new generation of mainland Chinese businessmen who are striving to build a capitalist financial system from scratch. Hirsh is the author of the nonfiction book "At War with Ourselves" (Oxford University Press, 2003) which explores America's foreign policy and its global role.
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