Mullah Sangeen Zadran, a senior Taliban and Haqqani Network leader, was intricately linked to Al Qaeda. he viewed the two groups as inseparable “brothers.” The U.S. killed Sangeen and an Al Qaeda bomb maker in a drone strike in Pakistan in 2013.
Muhanad Mahmoud Al Farekh, a member of al Qaeda’s paramilitary force in Afghanistan and Pakistan, was involved in a double suicide attack in Khost, Afghanistan in 2009.
The Taliban and allied groups such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, al Qaeda, Harakat-ul-Mujahideen, and Lashkar-e-Taiba are known to have run dozens of camps inside Afghanistan even as the Coalition was present.
The strike is the second in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan in the past week.
The senior Haqqani Network commander and a Lashkar al Zil explosives expert are said to be among those killed in yesterday’s strike in North Waziristan.
Over the past several days, ISAF launched five raids against two senior al Qaeda leaders and two al Qaeda-linked Taliban commanders in Kunar and Nuristan provinces.
Abd al Hamid al Masli, a Libyan, is a “key improvised explosive device (IED) facilitator” who operates in Waziristan. He temporarily served as the head of al Qaeda’s military committee, likely after Abdullah Said al Libi, the former head of the Lashkar al Zil, was killed in a drone strike.
Abd el Kader Mahmoud Mohamed el Sayed was a close advisor to al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri and served as a military commander in Afghanistan before he was killed. El Sayed was involved in the Luxor massacre and, while living in Milan, was recorded by Italian intelligence discussing terror plots against the West.
The video clip shows a map on a whiteboard that details the location of the security perimeter, aircraft, hangars, and other buildings. Al Qaeda and the Mullah Dadullah Front were likely involved in the assault that destroyed six USMC Harriers.
The US military also announced that the Harrier squadron commander was one of the two Marines killed in the suicide assault on Camp Bastion that took out eight strike aircraft.
The Taliban claimed the “Khalid ibn al Walid group” and the “Omar bin al Khattab group” were part of the attack, and said they used silencers.
Taqwa, an Afghan national, directed attacks and funneled IEDs and weapons to insurgents in Paktika province. ISAF has conducted at least 19 raids against al Qaeda’s network in Afghanistan since the end of May.
One of the commanders had planned an August 2008 ambush in Kabul province that resulted in the deaths of 10 French soldiers.
Ammar died in the same airstrike on July 1 that also killed Khatab Shafiq, a Pakistani citizen who served as Lashkar-e-Taiba’s leader for Kunar province.
ISAF confirmed that Hanzallah was killed in the July 1 airstrike in Watahpur. He is the third senior al Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba leader killed in the district in the past five weeks.
A jihadist media outlet has released previously unseen photographs of slain top al Qaeda leaders Abu Laith al Libi, Abdullah Said al Libi, and Abu Abdullah al Shami.
Last October, a 500-man force assaulted an observation post in Kunar. The attack was launched from Pakistan.
Mounir and Yassin Chouka, two Germans who are operatives in the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, and Mevlut Kar, an Islamic Jihad Union facilitator, were added to the list of Specially Designated Global terrorists. All three have ties to al Qaeda.
The commander led a cell of approximately 50 foreign fighters in the central province of Wardak.
Press reports indicate that Atiyah Abd al Rahman, who is Osama bin Laden’s ambassador to Iran, was killed in a recent airstrike in northern Pakistan. US intelligence officials cannot confirm Atiyah’s death, but do confirm that he has relocated from Iran to northern Pakistan.
Mohammed Usman was a key member of Brigade 313 and helped unite al Qaeda with several Pakistani jihadist groups.
An Afghan Army operation was “routed” during an operation along the Pakistani border in Laghman province.
The website is linked to the Pakistan-based al Qaeda military formation that is commanded by Ilyas Kashmiri.