Pakistani officials subsequently issued a series of statements about Kashmiri’s death.
“I can confirm 100 percent that he is dead,” Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters on Monday. “I got this information this morning.”
But US officials familiar with counter-terrorism activities in the region said they were unable to confirm Kashmiri’s death. It was more likely than not, they said on Monday evening, that the militant leader was still alive.
“It wouldn’t be the first time that reports of his death have been wrong,” one US official told Reuters. “We’re simply unable at this time to confirm reports of Kashmiri’s demise. Our working assumption is that he’s still walking around.”
A second US official said government experts believed it was more likely that Kashmiri was alive, although they are not ruling out the possibility he was killed in a drone strike. The US officials spoke on condition of anonymity.
The conflicting assessments indicate relations between the United States and Pakistan — which hit a low point after the US killing of Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden last month in Pakistan — remain deeply troubled despite claims by both countries that they were improving.
But Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, on Tuesday also urged caution about reports of Kashmiri’s death.
On the Twitter social network, using shorthand abbreviations, Haqqani said: “There R reasons 2 B cautious abt reports relating 2 death of terrorist mastermind Ilyas Kashmiri. We cnt afford 2 let down R guard.”
The top US commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, raised doubts about Kashmiri’s death, saying on ABC News on Monday: “I’m not sure that’s been confirmed.”
Kashmiri, labeled a “specially designated global terrorist” by the US State Department, was wrongly reported to have been killed in a September 2009 drone strike.
It is difficult to confirm the identities of people killed in drone strikes because they occur in remote areas not accessible to foreign journalists.
A Pakistani television station quoted the group that Kashmiri headed, an Al-Qaeda affiliate called Harkat-ul Jihad Islami, confirming his death. Britain’s Channel 4 News said the death had been confirmed by a senior HUJI commander and close aide of Kashmiri.
But SITE Institute, a US-based private group that monitors and translates messages posted on militant websites, on Monday cast doubt on an Internet photo said to be of Kashmiri’s body and an accompanying fax from HUJI confirming his death.
The US group said it appeared to be the body of another militant, Abu Dera Ismail Khan, who was killed in the militant attacks on Mumbai, India, in November 2008.
Meanwhile, a Pakistani government official said five NATO oil tankers were destroyed in an explosion at the Afghan border.
Tahir Khan said the Tuesday explosion ripped through a parking area at the Torkham border crossing, where the tankers go through customs before crossing into neighboring Afghanistan.
He said he did not know who was responsible or what caused the explosion.
