Word: baitullah
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...emanate unless action is taken. Over the past year, Washington has intensified CIA-operated drone strikes - yielding a flurry of successes. Air strikes may have killed two prominent al-Qaeda commanders over the past fortnight. If confirmed, the deaths would be further blows to the terrorist group. Last month, Baitullah Mehsud, the head of the Pakistani Taliban and a key al-Qaeda ally, was killed in a remote part of South Waziristan. Mehsud's death has sown discord among his followers, with the new leader struggling to maintain control of the increasingly fractious alliance. The tribal areas "can no longer...
...Wednesday's shooting has raised fears of a renewed campaign of violence in Pakistan's major cities after a lull following the counterinsurgency operation in the northwest Swat Valley and the assassination of Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in a CIA drone strike on Aug. 5. (Read: "Hakimullah Mehsud: The New Head of Pakistan's Taliban...
...recent U.S. takeout of Taliban big cheese Baitullah Mehsud has predictably fired up these drone proponents, who see it as a clear-cut success story and a case for upping the number of UAVs. What’s more surprising, perhaps, is that the counterarguments have been so few and so thin. It’s the specifics, rather than the supremacy of the drone approach itself, that have come under attack. Pakistanis decry U.S. counterterrorist strikes in their country as a “violation of sovereignty” (apparently, contracting out assassination missions to third parties isn?...
...pounding targets from the air (an operation Islamabad insists it will continue). But that falls short of the military campaign the U.S. desires. Instead, Pakistani authorities are hoping to exploit divisions within the TTP to prize away some factions, while counting on the CIA's drones to take out Baitullah's successors. (See pictures of refugees fleeing the fighting in Pakistan's Swat Valley...
...counterterrorism officials worry that a failure to capitalize on the post-Baitullah confusion within the TTP will allow its new leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, to consolidate his position and reorganize the group. Officials in Washington say special envoy Richard Holbrooke and NATO commander General Stanley McChrystal have pressed the Pakistanis to strike while the iron is hot. But after initial promises to launch a ground offensive in South Waziristan, the Pakistanis have backed...