It’s really entertaining watching the media trying to explain things they don’t understand or can’t confirm. See if you can catch the ambiguous and non-committal reporting in the CNN video below:
To review, “a suspected US drone strike in Pakistan may have killed a man considered al Qaeda’s military brain.” In other words, some weird explosion that came out of nowhere, but probably a drone, has killed, hurt, or caused no harm to a person who may have or have not been leading al Qaeda’s military operation (that is, as opposed to their peaceful operations).
It does appear now that the terrorist in question, Ilyas Kashmiri, was killed. This is another big blow to al Qaeda. He was a seasoned veteran of guerrilla warfare, and was leading al Qaeda through their next phase in their war against their enemies. He cryptically told the Asia Times in 2009 that the 2008 Mumbai, India attacks were “nothing compared to what has already been planned for the future.” Although al Qaeda today has a more decentralized model than it had in the past as I discussed in a recent post, Kashmiri took a major leadership role and was still looking beyond the battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan. His death is another big victory for America’s campaign in the region against al Qaeda.
It is also important to note that this was another high-level assassination carried out on Pakistani soil on the heels of the bin Laden raid last month. It’s a good sign that America is not backing off the targeting of its enemies that are residing in Pakistani territory. Many questioned how the bin Laden raid would impact US-Pakistani relations, but for now, the US is still going after those that need to be killed or captured.
