Drone hits Taliban target

A missile strike by an unmanned US drone in Pakistan has killed a senior Taliban leader believed to have close ties to al Qaeda. Intelligence and Taliban sources said Badar Mansoor, a Pakistani Taliban leader and senior militant commander, was one of five people killed in a dawn strike.

"He died in the missile attacks overnight in Miranshah. His death is a major blow to al Qaeda's abilities to strike in Pakistan," a senior Pakistani official told the AFP news agency, on condition of anonymity.

The drone attack targeted a compound in Miranshah, the main town of the North Waziristan region on the porous Afghan-Pakistani border.

One of Mansoor's loyalists also confirmed the killing to AFP and Reuters. The US does not normally comment on drone operations, which are thought to have killed hundreds of people in recent years - though the missions were publicly acknowledged by President Barack Obama for the first time last month.

Drone strikes are thought to have all-but stopped in recent months, after one cross-border air strike killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, severely straining already uneasy ties between Washington and Islamabad. Most people and politicians in Pakistan oppose the drone missions as an encroachment on national sovereignty causing unacceptable levels of civilian casualties.

Mansoor did not have a bounty on his head as part of the US State Department Rewards for Justice list, but was still thought to be a prime US target in Pakistan - acting as a go-between for the Taliban and al Qaeda in the region.

msh/mz (AFP, Reuters)