Almost a month after the US raid that killed Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad, a US drone attack eliminated his potential successor, Ilyas Kashmiri, in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan, officials said on Saturday.
Ilyas Kashmiri, a key planned of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, was equally wanted by Pakistan, India and the US for masterminding various terror plots; his latest handiwork was the attack on the
Pakistani naval base in Karachi that destroyed two aircraft and killed 15 security officials. “Intelligence reports and sources confirm his death. We can safely say Ilyas Kashmiri is no more,” a
security official told this newspaper.
The Harkat al-Jihad al-Islami (HuJI) also confirmed the death of its chief, Ilyas Kashmiri, in a US drone strike in South Waziristan. In a letter faxed to several media organisations here, the
outfit declared that Kashmiri had died in the US attack. In the letter Abu Hanzla Kashir, who identified himself as a HuJI spokesman, said, “We confirm that our Amir (leader) and commander-in-
chief, Mohammed Ilyas Kashmiri, along with other companions, was martyred in an American drone strike on June 3, 2011 at 11.15 pm.” “God willing ... America will very soon see our full revenge. Our
only target is America,” he added.
Other officials in various ministries said they had received reports of his death. Earlier, the BBC reported his death claiming Kashmiri was among the nine killed in a drone attack in South
Waziristan in the intervening night of Friday and Saturday.
The US state department holds Kashmiri’s HuJI organisation as responsible for various terrorist attacks in Pakistan and India. Kashmiri was a front-runner for the top slot in Al Qaeda since the
killing of Bin Laden.
The drone attack was launched in Ghwa Khawa, around 20 km from Wana, when a group of Taliban were drinking tea in a garden. Nine people were slain and three were injured in the attack. All the
killed were Pakistani Punjabi Taliban, officials said.
An eyewitness claimed Kashmiri had come to the area half an hour before the strike. According to him, two missiles were fired at
them, rocking the entire region. The residents of the area buried the victims in a local graveyard. Locals said the bodies of the militants were collected Saturday morning and buried in the nearby
graveyard by the people, some of them confirming the death of Ilyas Kashmiri.
The killing of Kashmiri comes just days after US secretary of state Hillary Clinton handed over a list of five most wanted Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders, including Kashmiri, to Pakistan. The others
on that list are Al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda operations chief Atiya Abdel Rahman and Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
Born February 10, 1964, Kashmiri came from Mirpur district of Pakistan-administered Kashmir. According to several sources, he became a member of the elite Pakistani Special Service Group, although
he has always denied this. Kashmiri also spent a year studying communications at Allama Iqbal Open University in Islamabad.
Ilyas Kashmiri, cited as one of the masterminds of a plot for a series of “Mumbai-style” attacks in European cities in 2010, has always been seen as a probable successor to Osama bin Laden as the
new terrorist head of Al Qaeda.
Kashmiri, also named in the terrorism case against Pakistani Canadian accused Tahawwur Hussain Rana, has been described by one senior US official as a rising star in Al Qaeda. Rana, bring tried in
the US, is accused of providing material support to terror outfit Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) and providing cover for Pakistani American David Coleman Headley for scouting targets for the 2008 Mumbai
terror attack.
Although the attacks on European cities never came off, Kashmiri, who frequently sported aviator-style sunglasses, said in 2010 that the 2008 Mumbai attack was “nothing compared to what has already
been planned for the future”.
His associates say Kashmiri was at one point a member of the Pakistani military, serving as a commando in the Special Services Group that was once tasked with training Afghan mujahideen to fight
the Soviets. He was later reassigned to train Kashmiri fighters against the Indians, but broke from the Pakistani Army and joined a terrorist group called Harkat al-Jihad al-Islami, or HuJI, that
has been closely aligned with Al Qaeda. Hints of Bin Laden’s links with Kashmiri — and of Kashmiri’s interest in mass casualties terror plots — are contained in US court documents.
According to the Chicago case indictment, Kashmiri based his terror operations in western Pakistan and, starting in 2007, was “in regular contact with Al Qaeda”.
In February 2009, the indictment states, David Coleman Headley met Kashmiri and another co-defendant in Waziristan region of Pakistan and handed him surveillance videotapes he had taken of the
Copenhagen offices of Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which had run insulting cartoons of Prophet Mohammed, to help plan a terrorist operation.
“During the meeting, Kashmiri indicated that he had already reviewed the Copenhagen videotapes and suggested that they consider using a truck bomb in the operation,” the indictment states.
“Kashmiri also indicated he could provide manpower for the operation.”
Headley was at Chicago airport preparing to take a flight to Philadelphia, and then to Pakistan, where he planned to meet Kashmiri again, when he was arrested by FBI agents on October 3, 2009. He subsequently pleaded guilty and is the star prosecution witness against Rana.