Islamabad, Jun 4
Top Al-Qaida militant, Ilyas Kashmiri, a key planner behind the gruesome Mumbai terror attack, was killed in a targeted US drone strike in Pakistan’s restive northwest, a month after the slaying of Osama bin Laden.

Kashmiri (47), a former Pakistani Army commando, on whose head the US had put a reward of $ 5 million, was killed when a predator drone fired four missiles late last night at a compound in Ghwakhwa area of South Waziristan.

“The attack targeted Kashmiri”, Pakistan officials said. His outfit Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami confirmed his death in faxed messages to TV channels here.

Confirming his killing, HuJI spokesperson Abu Hanzala said: “Commander Ilyas Kashmiri was killed in a US drone attack.” He said the outfit will take revenge on the US for this.

The killing of Kashmiri, who was widely speculated to take over as Al-Qaida chief after the killing of bin Laden, comes just days after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton handed over a list of five most-wanted Al-Qaida and Taliban leaders, including Kashmiri, to Pakistan.

“Nine militants were killed in last night’s drone attacks and all of them were Pakistani Punjabi Taliban,” security officials said.

Kashmiri was reportedly sitting in an apple orchard with other militants and had come to the area shortly before the missile strike.

A resident of South Waziristan was quoted as saying by BBC Urdu that witnesses saw the bodies of the militants killed in the drone strike lying in the apple orchard this morning. Security sources said Kashmiri and other senior militant leaders recently arrived in Waziristan from Khyber tribal region. Kashmiri, who had lost one eye, often wore aviator-style sunglasses. He also had a missing index finger and was notorious for his claim to have presented the severed head of an Indian soldier to the then Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.

Kashmiri was recently appointed the chief of the 313 Brigade, an operational arm of Al-Qaida. Kashmiri, a resident of Mirpur in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (Pok), is one of the most wanted terrorist by Indian security agencies. Kashmiri has been linked to several major terror attacks, including the 2008 Mumbai strikes and the recent Taliban raid on the PNS Mehran naval airbase in Karachi.

The US was after him for quite some time. Recently in a court testimony, American terrorist David Headley had said that he had offered to US security agencies to travel undercover to Pakistan’s tribal areas to present Kashmiri with an ornate sword that could be fitted with a homing device to set him up for a missile attack.

British and American counter-terrorism officials believe that he was the main coordinator of a recent terror plot targeting Britain, France, Germany and Europe, which was reportedly in early stages when busted by intelligence agencies last year.

In January 2010, a US federal grand jury had indicted him for a terrorism-related offences in connection with a plot to attack Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten following an uproar over a blasphemous cartoon. Kashmiri was considered very close to Al-Qaida and reports had suggested that he might become the next chief of the terrorist network after Osama’s death.

Kashmiri belongs to PoK and some reports have claimed he served in the Pakistan Army’s elite Special Service Group. He was reported killed in a US drone strike in North Waziristan in September 2009 but re-emerged a month later to give an interview to Syed Saleem Shahzad, the journalist who was recently abducted and killed. — PTI