I have not been able to confirm this report from the German Press Agency (DPA) of the death of a Hezbollah fighter in the June 19 airstrike in North Waziristan. The article also appeared on the official website of the Lebanese Forces political party (and not the Lebanese Armed Forces official website as originally stated):
Lebanese citizen Mohammad Ali Hamadeh has been killed in Saturday’s US drone attack on al Qaeda hideout in Pakistan’s North Waziristan, the German news agency DPA reported.
Citing intelligence sources in Pakistan, DPA said Hamadeh, a Hezbollah member, was killed along with a group of followers.
DPA has it that Hamadeh returned to Lebanon in December 2005 after being secretly released in Germany, where he was serving a life sentence for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jetliner and killing of a US navy diver.
It had said Hamadeh had been released from a German prison in 2005 on bail after spending nearly 19 years in prison.
DPA, citing intelligence information, said Hamadeh fought along Hezbollah before moving to North Waziristan where he joined “Islamic Jihad” which has links to al Qaeda.
The report is interesting as it indicates that Hamadeh had indeed joined the Islamic Jihad Group, which was targeted in the June 19 attack. Among the 16 terrorists reported to have been killed in the attack were an al Qaeda leader named Abu Ahmed and 12 members of the Islamic Jihad Group.
This wouldn’t be the first case of a terrorist from a Middle Eastern group that had been involved in a hijacking and murder spree in the 1980s being killed in Pakistan’s tribal areas. On January 9, 2010, Jamal Saeed Abdul Rahim, an Abu Nidal Organization operative who participated in killing 22 hostages during the 1986 hijacking of Pan Am flight 73, was killed in a strike in North Waziristan.
