U.S. attempt to assassinate Taliban leader in Pakistan fails, officials report
Missile struck the commander's compound in North Waziristan, killing at least nine. The intended target of the attack, Jalaluddin Haqqani, was apparently not there at the time.
PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN — U.S. forces made an apparently unsuccessful attempt today to assassinate a prominent Taliban-linked commander who sometimes shelters in Pakistan's tribal areas, officials said.
Missiles from a suspected American drone aircraft struck a compound in the militant stronghold of North Waziristan, just across the border from Afghanistan, witnesses said. At least nine people were reported killed, though some reports put the tally as high as 16.
The targeted village, Dande Darba Khel, contains a madrassa, or religious school, and a family compound associated with the Haqqani network, which is blamed for a number of recent high-profile attacks inside Afghanistan against Western forces and other targets.
In the last few weeks, the Bush administration has stepped up unilateral strikes against Taliban and Al Qaeda figures in the tribal belt adjoining the Afghan border. Last week, American forces made an unusual ground raid on a village just inside Pakistan.
Associates told Pakistani media that neither Jalaluddin Haqqani nor his son, Sirajuddin, who has largely taken over his father's command role in the Taliban movement, were present in the village at the time of today's strike.
The elder and reportedly ailing Haqqani, whose career as a guerrilla commander dates back to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, has a long-standing acquaintance with Osama bin Laden.
The dead in today's missile strike included at least three suspected foreign militants, but two children were believed killed as well, local officials said.
The Haqqani network is thought to be responsible for attacks this year including a shooting and bombing assault on a luxury Western hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan, an assassination attempt against Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, the Afghan capital, which killed about 40 people.
Pakistan publicly decries U.S. raids on its soil as a violation of its sovereignty, even though its government is thought to tacitly support such unilateral moves on the part of the Americans.
A Pakistani military spokesman, Maj. Murad Khan, confirmed that explosions had taken place today in the area of North Waziristan that local officials said was hit, outside the town of Miran Shah, but that the cause was not immediately known.
