A U.S. drone strike this week killed a senior al Qaeda operator in a Pakistani tribal area near the Afghan border, U.S. and Pakistani officials said Friday.
U.S. officials said Saleh al-Somali, who was responsible for al Qaeda's operations outside of Afghanistan and Pakistan, was killed in the strike Tuesday. He was on the C.I.A.’S list of the top 20 al Qaeda targets, according to an official familiar with the list.
For all the Pakistani Governments public berating of the Americans for using drones on Pakistan territory it was information provided by Pakistan’s SIS that led to the death of al-Somali.
The SIS (Pakistan intelligence service) has in the past been accused of having very close ties to Al Quaeda, so its about time they came on board.
With the 30.000 extra troops “surge” in Afghanistan expected to be in full flow by the summer of 2010, and victory over the Taliban said to be accomplished in approx 18 months, the Pakistani’s know that the next major battle in the war on terror will be fought in Pakistan’s border regions.
It will be interesting to see how accurate the time scale predicted for victory in Afghanistan is, with the new tactics of actively going after the Taliban and smashing them wherever they are found is.
Obama has said the troop pullout starts in July 2011. and security handed over to the Afghans themselves to take responsibility for their own Country I believe its possible.
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