Waziristan

A series of missile strikes killed at least 19 suspected insurgents Saturday in Pakistan's tribal borderlands, signaling that the new year would bring no respite in a relentless campaign of U.S. attacks employing aerial drones to target militant figures. The strikes in the North Waziristan tribal agency were apparently aimed at the Haqqani network, an offshoot of the Taliban movement and one of the deadliest foes of U.S. and other Western forces in Afghanistan. The group's fighters operate mainly in the eastern part of Afghanistan but seek shelter in neighboring Pakistan.

Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan, and Peshawar, Pakistan -- A suicide bombing at a crowded courthouse in Peshawar killed 19 people Thursday, the 10th such attack in six weeks for a city bearing the brunt of retaliation from Taliban militants battling Pakistani troops along the Afghan border. Now in its fifth week, Pakistan's military offensive has succeeded in retaking much of the ground held by Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters in South Waziristan, for years the militants' primary stronghold.

The U.S. has confirmed that a key Al Qaeda planner and trainer was killed in a drone strike in the tribal areas of Pakistan in June, a U.S. intelligence official said Thursday. Ilyas Kashmiri led a militant group in Pakistan and in recent years had been brought into the leadership of Al Qaeda, running a training camp and planning attacks against targets in India and Europe, said the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.

A couple of decades ago, Hamid Gul could trek into militant camps in North Waziristan like an old friend stopping by for dinner. Back then, he was Pakistan's intelligence chief, and his hosts valued him as their benefactor in the struggle against Soviet troops in Afghanistan. "I used to travel there frequently," Gul says. "Everything was hunky-dory." The neighborhood has changed, and the friendships too. Islamic militant camps still dot the region's rugged mountainsides and basins, but these days they shelter and train a caldron of disparate exremist groups with varying roots and an evolving network of allegiances.

A militant network that is a major Western adversary in Afghanistan is expanding its reach into tribal badlands outside its longtime sanctuary in Pakistan, a move that could complicate U.S. efforts to eradicate the group. Pakistani tribal elders in the Kurram region along the Afghan border say large numbers of fighters from the Haqqani network, an ally of Al Qaeda, have been stationing themselves in the highlands of their rugged district and are demanding the freedom to move in and out of Afghanistan at will to carry out attacks in the neighboring country.

An overnight attack by an unmanned aircraft killed Ilyas Kashmiri, an Al Qaeda-linked operative blamed for several high-profile attacks in Pakistan and India, local news reports and a statement by his banned militant organization said Saturday. If borne out, this would be the second major U.S. anti-terrorism coup in quick succession, coming just a month after the killing of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden by Navy SEALs. Analysts had identified Kashmiri as a possible Bin Laden successor.

Pakistan announced late Sunday that it planned to expand its offensive against Taliban militants into the troubled South Waziristan region. The announcement came just hours after a bomb in a crowded market killed eight people and wounded 38. The deadly bombing in the North-West Frontier Province was the latest in a series of attacks believed to be in retaliation for the army's offensive against strongholds of the Islamic militant group.

The U.S. military is providing intelligence and surveillance video from unmanned aircraft to the Pakistani army to assist in its week-old offensive in South Waziristan, marking the deepest American involvement yet in a Pakistani military campaign, officials said. The assistance includes imagery from armed Predator drones that Defense officials say are being used exclusively for intelligence gathering in the offensive. Providing such information fills gaps in the Islamabad government's spying arsenal, officials said, and helps show how the Obama administration intends to intensify pressure on insurgents in Pakistan as the administration overhauls the U.S. military strategy in neighboring Afghanistan.

The chief of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mahsud, and close associates attended the funeral of a militant commander in the country's tribal areas but left before a suspected U.S. drone attack that killed dozens of people, residents said Wednesday. The area where the attack occurred, the Bekh Mary Langara region of South Waziristan, is remote and there was no independent confirmation of the number of casualties.

A missile strike apparently carried out by one or more U.S. drones flattened a home in the South Waziristan region near the Afghan border, killing local and foreign militants, Pakistani intelligence officials said today. Sources did not agree on the number of dead, but it appeared to be at least 20, with several others wounded.