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WASHINGTON: US Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis has said that by killing a TTP (Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan) terrorist in Afghanistan, the United States has sent a clear message to the extremists that those who kill innocent people cannot escape justice.
On Saturday evening, the US Department of Defence issued a rare statement, confirming that a US drone had killed TTP leader Qari Yasin.
This was the first such confirmation by the Trump administration, which came to power on Jan 20.
“The death of Qari Yasin is evidence that terrorists who defame Islam and deliberately target innocent people will not escape justice,” Secretary Mattis said.
Signature weapon
Since 2001, drones have become a signature weapon in America’s war against terrorists and insurgents. The Bush administration, which started the drone war, launched 57 strikes during its tenure. The Obama administration, however, carried out 563 strikes during its two terms, 10 times more than by its predecessor.
Most of the strikes targeted alleged terrorist hideouts in Fata and successfully eliminated dozens of senior terrorist leaders, although they also killed hundreds of civilians in the process.
Despite a high success rate, the US administration avoids commenting on the strikes and even when the issue is raised at news briefings, US officials refuse to comment.
That’s why the Trump administration’s first confirmation of the strike as noticed, and reported, by both US media outlets and think tank experts who say that Washington’s current rulers are going to pursue the terrorists more aggressively than their predecessors.
“The US Department of Defence has confirmed that a US counterterrorism airstrike conducted on March 19 in Paktika province, Afghanistan, resulted in the death of Qari Yasin, a well-known Al Qaeda terrorist leader responsible for the deaths of dozens of innocent victims, including two American service members,” said the official Pentagon statement acknowledging the strike.
The Pentagon identified Yasin as a senior terrorist figure from Balochistan, who had ties to Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan and had plotted multiple Al Qaeda terror attacks, including the Sept 20, 2008, bombing on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad.
The Pentagon pointed out that the Marriot attack killed dozens of innocent people, among them US Air Force Maj Rodolfo I. Rodriguez and Navy Cryptologic Technician Third Class Petty Officer Matthew J. O’Bryant who were staying at the hotel.
Yasin was also responsible for the 2009 attack on a bus carrying the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore. Six Pakistani policemen and two civilians were killed and six members of the team injured, the Pentagon added.
Such a confirmation is rare as it not only owns up a drone strike but also gives personal details about the target, explaining why those responsible for the drone programme decided to eliminate him.
In the US, the drone programme is often criticised for giving the operators, usually CIA agents in the field, the power of the prosecution, judge and the executioner. Legal experts say that since an accused is targeted and killed without giving the chance to defend his position, it’s wrong.
The administration argues that the terrorists are moving targets and continue to plan and execute attacks on innocent civilians and they must be eliminated before they do more harm.
Qari Yasin is one of those TTP terrorists who escaped to Afghanistan after Pakistan launched a series of offensives against them, first in Swat in 2009 and then further expanded them in 2014 by launching Operation Zarb-i-Azb. Pakistan claims that TTP terrorists have opened camps near the Pak-Afghan border and regularly launch attacks inside Pakistan from those hideouts. Pakistan wants the Afghan government to destroy TTP camps inside its border.
The Afghan government responds to such requests by accusing Pakistan of running similar camps in Fata, which, it says, are used for carrying out terrorist attacks inside Afghanistan.
The United States, which still maintains some troops inside Afghanistan, does not get involved in these allegations and counter-allegations but does target militants on both sides of the border when it feels the need to do so.
The focus on TTP militants follows a determination by US experts that the militants who came from Pakistan are now joining the local branch of the Islamic State militant group known as the Islamic State of Khorasan (ISK).
Last month, Gen John Nicholson, the commander of US and international forces in Afghanistan, told a congressional panel in Washington that the TTP provides the core fighting group to ISK and that TTP fighters from Pakistan’s Orakzai tribal agency had en masse joined the relatively new terrorist outfit.
Published in Dawn, March 27th, 2017
