WANA, 20 June 2004 — The death toll in the missile strike that killed renegade tribal militant and former Taleban commander Nek Mohammad has risen to eight, Pakistan military officials said yesterday.
In addition to Nek Mohammad and four tribesmen, three foreign suspects also died in Thursday night’s attack near Wana, the main town in the frontier region of South Waziristan, military spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan said. “Eight people were killed in the attack including Nek and three foreigners,” Sultan told AFP.
Officials said a 15-minute satellite phone call by Nek helped pinpoint the tribal leader’s home where he was hiding. A laser-guided missile was then fired from an aircraft which struck the house.
“He was talking for a good 15 minutes to someone on his satellite phone when the missile was launched,” an intelligence official said. “We are trying to determine whom he was talking to,” the official said.
Nek was in the house of tribal leader Sher Zaman, whose two sons also died along with two of Nek’s local allies. Sultan did not disclose the identities or nationalities of the foreign militants killed with Nek.
Military officials have described Nek’s killing as a major success in the ongoing drive to flush Al-Qaeda-linked foreign militants out of the region.
The situation in South Waziristan is fully under the control of security forces, Sultan said when asked if there were any fears of a tribal backlash over the killing.
Nek had been a Taleban commander during the hard-line militia’s five-year rule in Afghanistan and trained Central Asian militants at a garrison just north of Kabul.
Security officials believe he sheltered hundreds of Chechen and Uzbek fighters around Wana, which is some 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) from the porous Afghan frontier, when they fled the US-led offensive to destroy the Taleban in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States.
Sporadic skirmishes between militants and Pakistani forces have erupted since the army rounded off a major offensive in the Shakai area last Sunday, killing 55 militants but losing 18 soldiers.
