adminPakistani officials said on Saturday that Badruddin Haqqani, the son of Afghan warlord Jalauddin Haqqani who is also believed to handle the network’s business and smuggling operations, may have been killed in the North Waziristan region bordering Afghanistan.
“Our informers have told us that he has been killed in the drone attack on the 21st but we cannot confirm it,” said one of the Pakistani intelligence officials.
A Taliban spokesman in Afghanistan, however, has rejected the reports.
Zabiullah Mujahid said in an email sent to reporters late on Saturday that Badruddin Haqqani is “alive and healthy” in Afghanistan.
If Badruddin’s death is confirmed, it could deal a major blow to the Haqqani group, believed to be the group that introduced the practice of suicide bombing to Afghanistan, where it is allied with the Taliban.
“We are 90 percent sure that he was in the same house which was attacked with a drone on Tuesday,” another Pakistani intelligence official said.
Sources close to the Haqqani Network also said Badruddin was believed to be in the house, hit by a drone strike as fighters were planting explosives in a vehicle meant to be used for an attack on Nato forces in Afghanistan.
“The drone fired two missiles on the house last Tuesday and killed 25 people, most of them members of the Haqqani family,” one of the sources said.
However, one of Badruddin’s relatives said he was alive and busy with his “jihad activities”.
“Such claims are baseless,” the relative said.
If confirmed, it would be the second high-profile death in a drone strike in Pakistan this week.
Maulvi Dadullah, a key commander of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) the Pakistani branch of the Taliban, was killed on Friday evening in Nato air strikes in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Kunar, Nato and Afghan officials said.
“There were two separate air strikes in Kunar yesterday. A total of 12 insurgents were killed, six in each air strike,” a Nato spokesman told the AFP news agency on Saturday.
The commander, along with his deputy, Shakir, and 10 others believed to be fighters, were killed in the attack that wounded seven others, Major General Ewaz Mohammad Naziri, told the Pajhwok news service in Afghanistan.
Pakistani Taliban officials, as well as Pakistani intelligence officials, said Dadullah had been killed in a house in eastern Kunar province.
A spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, Ahsanullah Ahsan, said Dadullah was killed in a drone strike in Kunar. He said Maulana Abu Bakar has been named as the new chief of the Bajur region. — Al Jazeera.
Online Reporter