Pakistani security forces on Wednesday announced the capture of a key Taliban commander linked to a 2003 assassination attempt on former President Pervez Musharraf, as an alleged U.S. drone strike killed 15 suspected rebels near the country's border with Afghanistan.
Adnan Rashid, a former air force officer turned rebel, was arrested during a raid last Friday on a rebel hideout in Pakistan's troubled northwestern tribal region, following a tip from local sources, two intelligence officials told The Associated Press.
The troops raided a home in the town of Shakai in the South Waziristan tribal region, bordering Afghanistan. Three associates of Rashid were also captured and were being questioned at an undisclosed location, the officials said.
Rashid was hiding at the home after fleeing from North Waziristan, where the military in June launched a much-awaited operation against rebels, the officials said.
The Pakistani army has not confirmed the arrest, which marks the first major capture in the operation.
In 2003, a suicide bomber tried to ram Musharraf's vehicle near Islamabad. Rashid was later convicted over the assassination attempt and imprisoned, but he escaped during a jailbreak orchestrated by the Pakistani Taliban in 2012.
Drone strikes
Also Wednesday, a drone believed to belong to the U.S. military fired four missiles in the town of Datta Khel in North Waziristan, killing at least 15 suspected rebels, two other Pakistani officials told the AP. The identities and nationalities of the slain men were not immediately known.
All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
However, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam told Reuters the Pakistani military had no confirmation there had been a U.S. drone strike.
Pakistan publicly condemns U.S. drone strikes, saying they often kill civilians and are a violation of sovereignty. But some officials, including the country’s former president, have said the military secretly approves them.
Uncertainty over the source of the drone strike underlines the difficulty in getting reliable information about military operations along the border.
The area is largely sealed off to outsiders, and the U.S. does not provide information about its drone attacks. The Pakistani military is also often reluctant to give details of its operations.
Hours after the strike in Datta Khel, the Pakistani military carried out fresh airstrikes in the Shawal valley in North Waziristan, killing 35 suspected rebels. In a statement, the military said the airstrikes were launched to target "fleeing terrorists."
The military says it has killed more than 450 rebels so far in North Waziristan, while it has lost more than two dozen soldiers. Over 800,000 people have fled the area before and after the start of the operations there, which the military says are aimed at "eliminating terrorists and their hideouts."
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