Taliban Leader: U.S. Missile Strikes ‘Incredible and Accurate’
A Taliban commander in northwest Pakistan tells CBS News a wave of recent U.S. air strikes have had an “incredible and accurate” impact on al Qaeda militants in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area.
Relentless waves of air strikes, suspected to have been carried out by unmanned U.S. drones, have pounded the region in the past three weeks, leaving dozens of alleged militants killed. They have been focused North Waziristan, where al Qaeda leaders are known to be hiding and planning attacks on the West and Western troops in Afghanistan.
“Within 72 hours, four to five drone attacks in tribal areas have interrupted badly al Qaeda and Pakistani militants,” the Pakistani Taliban commander told CBS News’ Sami Yousafzai in a telephone interview Tuesday.
The Taliban commander, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified by name, said the number of al Qaeda militants in the region was dwindling as a result of the increasing pressure.
While it may seem counter-intuitive for a Taliban commander to reveal apparent advances by the U.S. military and intelligence apparatus, it is important to note that the Islamic fighters in the region are divided into myriad tribal groups. Yousafzai’s source is a commander in a group not friendly with the Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud — a prime target of many American missiles — or his al Qaeda allies. Foreign fighters, many from Uzbekistan, are often recruited into the ranks of al Qaeda and allied with Mehsud’s faction, but are viewed by many locals in the border region as outsiders and distrusted.
There may be factors at work whose real nature will come as a tremendous shock when they are finally revealed. More than 3 years ago, reporter Bob Woodward made several cryptic statements about new developments that would rival the Manhattan Project in their importance. He said he couldn’t say more because lives were literally at stake, but the analogy suggests a revolutionary technical development of some kind rather than a political or procedural one.
Personally, I am quite sure Woodward is onto something big, but I don’t think it would be prudent to speculate any more than that.
