By BILL ROGGIO
The US has targeted senior leaders of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, including the group's emir, in three airstrikes in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar over the past nine days. Mullah Fazlullah, the leader of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, survived one of the airstrikes. Two of the airstrikes took place in areas where senior al Qaeda leaders have been targeted and killed over the past year.
The first reported strike targeted Fazlullah and senior leaders of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan as they were meeting in the district of Nazyan in Nangarhar on Nov. 24. Taliban commanders told The News that Fazlullah is alive, but two commanders, known as Assad Mehsud and Zarqawi, were among five leaders killed.
The second strike, which took place in Nangarhar's Shirzad district on Dec. 1, "killed three Taliban group commanders and two fighters," the spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar told the Associated Press. The identities of the Taliban leaders were not disclosed. A US intelligence official told The Long War Journal that a "leadership cell of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan" was targeted in the airstrike.
The third strike, which occurred on Dec. 2 in the village of Renay-Parchao, killed "some key militants belonging to the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan [Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan] Swat chapter," Dawn reported. The strike likely took place in Nangarhar's Lal Pur district, as the Kabul River runs through the district and makes up part of the border with Pakistan. Fazlullah originally led the Swat branch of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan.
Pakistani military and government officials have long accused the Afghan government of supporting and giving sanctuary to the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, which has declared war against the Pakistani state. The Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan operates on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border, and has sheltered in areas outside of the Afghan government's control in the mountainous provinces of Kunar and Nuristan as well as in Nangarhar.
In addition to targeting the group in drone strikes in Pakistan, the US has killed senior Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan leaders inside Afghanistan. On Aug. 24, 2012, the US killed Mullah Dadullah (a.k.a. Maulana Mohammad Jamal), his deputy, Shakir, and 10 Taliban fighters in an airstrike in the Shigal wa Sheltan district in Kunar province. [See LWJ report, Bajaur Taliban leader, deputy killed in airstrike in eastern Afghanistan.]
Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/12/us_airstrikes_target_2.php#ixzz3KqBLvF6T
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