Peshawar: An alleged mastermind of PNS Mehran attack and top al-Qaeda operative Ilyas Kashmiri was killed in a US drone strike in South Waziristan near Afghan border on late Friday night, BBC Urdu reported on Saturday.
Quoting local sources BBC reported that a US drone fired four missiles in GhawaKhawa area, some 20 kiliometre southeast of Wana, main town of South Waziristan, killing nine people and injuring several.
Local sources said that the militants were taking tea in an apple garden when the attack took place. They said that the bodies of the militants were collected Saturday morning and buried in the nearby graveyard by the local people some of them confirming the death of Ilyas Kahmiri. However the news could not be confirmed from the independent sources as the area was not accessed by the journalists.
BBC correspondent say he also has news of Ilyas Kashmiri’s death but there was no confirmation.
Quoting an eye witness the BBC says Kashmiri was seen in the area 10 days ago and he arrived in South Waziristan’s Tithyai area with some of his aides. He said that the al-Qaeda commander was among the dead.
The reported noted that Ilyas Kashmir arrived in the area form Khyber Agency.
A news agency reported that Pakistan and the US had discussed last week to form a joint operation team to kill five top militants commanders and Ilyas Kashmiri was among the five while other are Dr Ayman al Zawahiri, Sirajuddin Haqqani, Mullah Omar and Atia Abdur Rehman.
Kashmiri was head of the Harkat Jihad-e-Islami which was affiliated with al-Qaeda.
He was accused of launching terror attacks on Indian soil while the US State Department labeled him as perpetrator of blast out side US consulate killing four people in Karachi back in 2006.He has a head money of 2.5 millions dollars.
When asked about the killing of Kashmiri Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said he had no such information.
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