Top Al Qaeda leader killed in Pakistan

[Turborama]

Source: Xinhua Via IANS

Islamabad, Sep 29 (IANS) Top Al Qaeda leader Sheikh Al-Fateh has been killed in a US drone attack in northwest Pakistan, Xinhua reported Tuesday.

US drones fired nine missiles at three targets in North Waziristan to eliminate him Sunday.

Al-Fateh, 50, had joined the Taliban after coming to Afghanistan from Yemen in 1996. He fled to Pakistan after the US attacked Afghanistan in 2001. He was appointed as commander of the Al Qaeda for operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan following the death of its leader Mustafa Abu al-Yazid in North Waziristan in May.

Waziristan is home to Taliban leaders Hakimullah Mehsood, Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Mulla Nazir, who are fighting against the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. The Haqqani network led by Sirajuddin Haqqani, son of former Taliban commander Jalauddin Haqqani, is also active there.

Read more: http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/south-asia/top-al-qaeda-leader-killed-in-pakistan_100436223.html

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Map sourced from this BBC article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7601748.stm">The Afghan-Pakistan militant nexus

[tularetom]

1. "A" top guy or "the" top guy?

How many number 2 al qaeda leaders have we killed so far?

[Bozita]

6. Betting this guy's a #2. ... We've even killed one #2 twice!

The fog of war.

[jmondine]

13. Being the #2 Al Qaeda guy is like being the Admiral on Darth Vader's ship

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

15. ''Who.... does.... number 2......

work .... for....?!"

[24601]

16. None. Al Zawahiri has always been #2. The death position is #3

unless you are talking about affiliated groups, not Al Qaeda.

Al-Fateh was the Operational Commander for the AFPAK area.

[rocktivity]

2. And how many civilians went with him?

:headbang:
rocktivity

[FiveGoodMen]

3. Well, it's all been worth it, then.

[Arctic Dave]

4. If we think that we are going to win a war of attrition i would say we are screwed

It seems Al Qaida has an unlimited amount of top leaders while we have a limited amount of soldiers. Has the pentagon done the math on this?

[fascisthunter]

5. remember in Dr. Strangelove...

...with the cowboy idiot riding a missile. That's all I can think of when it comes to those making money off the military industrial complex. If only their investors would strap themselves to the bombs before they dropped them.

[pattmarty]

10. One of the best "political movies" of all time, and great satire.

[fascisthunter]

20. "Network" is another one

[TheWatcher]

7. More Propaganda for the dumbed down and easily led.

:boring:

[pattmarty]

9. Remember what we in the US used to hear about the Soviet Union.........

.......in the 60's,, 70's, and 80's? How they spied on their citizens and how most of the citizens knew about it and made jokes about it. Is this starting to sound somewhat familiar? I think that's what OUR government called it at the time, propaganda.

[Turborama]

11. If it is just propaganda, I wonder why the Indo-Asian News Service & China's official press agency

(Xinhua) would be propagating it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Asian_News_Service

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinhua_News_Agency

[Art_from_Ark]

18. And during the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong/North Vietnamese

always suffered 10 or 20 times as many casualties as the Americans/South Vietnamese did, every day. I saw the body counts on the news every night.

[pattmarty]

8. Which "top" guy is this? And, more importantly HOW "top" was this guy?................

........The Obama admin is using the same stupid "body count" bullshit that the Bush admin did. For fucks sake, I just hope that as long as this bombing shit is going on, that at least they are killing the enemy. I'm afraid that's not the case though, unless they ALL the enemy were attending weddings and parties.

[Historic NY]

12. Well that explains all those missles.

[quakerboy]

14. It seems to me that

Al Quaida is far more "Grass roots" than the tea party can ever realistically hope to be. Which means that there are a whole lot of "top men" out there. So we can keep claiming meaningless PR kills for a loooong time to come, without doing their movement any real harm.

Then again, it seems to me that Al Quaida is everything that that the tea party strives to be, so maybe we ought to be addressing that at home before we continue meddling in other countries.

[grantcart]

21. Actually Al Jazeera is reporting that the Taliban is increasingly filled with foriegn fighters and

not Afghans. The Taliban is the least 'grass root' insurgency in modern history.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/09/201091183514798599.html

[davidinalameda]

17. who cares if he was number one or number two

there's one less terrorist in the world tonight

[Hardrada]

19. Your ingenious contribution is duly noted.