Illyas Kashmiri, the merciless terrorist, who had planned to kill the CEO of U.S drone company - Lockheed Martin, whom the U.S. expected to be the next leader of the Al-Qaeda, was killed by U.S. forces during a drone attack. Ilyas Kashmiri, was killed in an American drone strike in the tribal territory of South Waziristan, residents and a militant active in the area said Saturday. But Pakistani and American officials cautioned that they had not been able to confirm his death.Mr. Kashmiri is considered one of the most dangerous and highly trained Pakistani militants, allied with Al Qaeda. A former member of Pakistan’s special forces, the Special Services Group, Mr. Kashmiri was suspected of being behind several attacks, including the May 22 battle at the Mehran naval base in the southern port city of Karachi that deeply embarrassed Pakistani officials. He has also been implicated in the terrorist attack on Mumbai, India, in 2008, in which at least 163 people were killed, including some American citizens.
He was reported to have been killed Friday in a strike on a compound in Laman, near Wana, the main town of South Waziristan. A senior government official in Wana, Atifur Rehman, said the strike killed nine people in all. Mr. Rehman said that Mr. Kashmiri had been recently been reported to have set up in Laman recently, and that a sharp increase in drone flights over the area had been noticed in the past few days.
Mr. Kashmiri’s death would certainly be welcomed by both American and Pakistani intelligence agencies, and could go some way to alleviating the strained relations between the two countries that have developed in recent months, in particular since the May 2 raid that killed Osama bin Laden 75 miles from Islamabad. Pakistan has accused the United States of pursuing its own agenda in Pakistan without coordinating with Pakistani security forces, running its own intelligence agents and conducting unilateral strikes that ride roughshod over Pakistan’s sovereignty.
