News
Monday, June 06, 2011
’98 percent sure’ Ilyas Kashmiri is dead, says Rehman Malik
* Interior minister says govt looking for substantive evidence to confirm death
ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Sunday that he was “98 percent sure” senior al Qaeda operative Ilyas Kashmiri was killed in a US drone strike near the Afghan border.
US officials in Washington were sceptical over reports that Kashmiri, seen as one of the world’s most dangerous terrorist, was dead.
A US National Security official said he could not confirm that Kashmiri had been killed and another US official said it was doubtful.
“All ground intelligence shows that he is dead. What I can say is there is a 98 percent chance he is dead,” the interior minister said.
“Since we do not have the body. We do not have the DNA we need to confirm. This is the substantive evidence we are looking for.”
That may not be possible since it is very difficult for Pakistani security forces to get to areas like South Waziristan where intelligence officials said Kashmiri was killed in a drone strike on Friday night.
After missile strikes by a remotely operated drone, terrorists often seal off the area then bury their comrades.
The elimination of Kashmiri would be another coup for the US after American special forces killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad on May 2. The killing of bin Laden aroused international suspicions that Pakistani authorities had been complicit in hiding him, and led to domestic criticism of them for failing to detect or stop the US team that killed him. A senior Pakistani security official said, “It is almost confirmed that he is dead. Different sources confirmed it but we cannot say it is 100 percent confirmed because we do not have the body”. He went on to say that Kashmiri was holding a meeting with other terrorists when the drone missile struck.
US doubts over claims of Kashmiri’s demise may be further evidence of deep distrust between Pakistani and US intelligence services public pledges by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other American officials that relations had improved.
One intelligence official said that Pakistan had tipped off the Americans about the whereabouts of Kashmiri, whom the US Department of State had labelled a “specially designated global terrorist”. reuters
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk