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S.K Khan / AFP - Getty Images, file
Mullah Nazir, center, is seen at a press conference in Wana, Pakistan, in 2007. The Associated Press reported that at least 5,000 people attended Nazir's funeral after he was killed by a U.S. drone strike.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- A U.S. drone strike killed a Taliban commander and at least seven other people in northwest Pakistan, security officials told NBC News on Thursday.
Maulvi Nazir, who is also known as Mullah Nazir, was killed on Wednesday night when missiles struck a mud-built complex in Angoor Adda near the Afghan border, Pakistani officials said.
His deputy, Ratta Khan, was also killed, sources told Reuters. Four other people were injured.
Reports of Nazir's death came weeks after he was wounded in a bomb attack believed to have been launched by Taliban rivals.
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According to The Associated Press, Nazir's death could prove to be a contentious issue between Washington and Islamabad, which is believed to have struck a nonaggression pact with Nazir ahead of the Pakistani military's 2009 operation against militants in South Waziristan.
Nazir, 46, favored attacking American forces in Afghanistan rather than Pakistani soldiers in Pakistan, a position that put him at odds with some other Pakistan Taliban commanders but earned him a reputation as a "good" Taliban among some in the Pakistan military.
Muhammed Muheisen / AP
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Pakistan's military viewed Nazir and militant chiefs like him as key to keeping the peace internally because they do not attack Pakistani targets.
The military has a large base in Wana, where Nazir and his men were based. Residents said the main market in Wana shut down on Thursday to mark Nazir's death.
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Nazir was wounded there in a bombing in November, widely believed to be a result of his rivalries with other Taliban commanders. Six others were killed in the same bombing.
Residents in both Angoor Adda and Wana, the biggest town in South Waziristan, said they heard announcements on mosque loudspeakers announcing Nazir's death. One resident, Ajaz Khan, told The Associated Press by telephone that 5,000 to 10,000 people attended the funeral of Nazir and six other people held in Angoor Adda.
“He was our hero”, local tribesman Janat Gul Wazir told NBC News. “He had expelled all the foreign militants from our villages.”
Nazir outraged many Pakistanis in June when he announced that he would not allow any polio vaccinations in territory under his control until the U.S. stops drone attacks in the region. Pakistan is one of three countries where polio is still endemic. Nine workers helping in anti-polio vaccination campaigns were killed last month by militant gunmen.
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The former chief of intelligence in northwest Pakistan, retired brigadier Asad Munir, said Nazir's killing will complicate the fight against militants in the tribal region, and could prompt Nazir's group to carry out retaliatory attacks against the Pakistani army in South Waziristan.
It will also raise questions among military commanders here who would like the U.S. to use its firepower against the Pakistani Taliban, which attacks domestic targets, and not against militants like Nazir who aren't seen as posing as much of a threat to the Pakistani state, Munir told The Associated Press.
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Pakistan's army, an uneasy ally of the United States, has clawed back territory from the Taliban since launching a military offensive in 2009.
But senior U.S. officials have frequently said that some elements within Pakistan's security services retain ties to some Taliban commanders.
Intensified U.S. drone strikes have killed many senior Taliban leaders, including Mehsud's predecessor, Baitullah Mehsud, in 2009.
Drone strikes have dramatically increased since President Barack Obama took office. There were only five drone strikes in 2007. The number of strikes peaked at 117 in 2010 but fell to 46 last year.
The program has killed a number of top militant commanders over the past year, including al-Qaida's then-No. 2, Abu Yahya al-Libi, who died in a drone strike in June on the Pakistani village of Khassu Khel in North Waziristan.
Some Pakistanis say the drone strikes are an infringement of their national sovereignty and have called for them to stop.
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Others, including some residents of the tribal areas, say they are killing Taliban commanders who have terrorized the local population.
The continuing insecurity is likely to be a key issue in elections scheduled for this spring. The nuclear-armed nation of 180 million has a history of military coups, but these polls should mark the first time one elected civilian government gets to hand power to another.
NBC News' Waj Khan and Mushtaq Yusafzai, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Leave a Comment:
Ten thousand at his funeral? Well, let's think about this - they're probably not his enemies. So what would the Taliban do - NUKE IT! At the very least, saturation bombing.
"Nazir favored attacking American forces in Afghanistan rather than Pakistani soldiers in Pakistan, a position that put him at odds with some other Pakistan Taliban commanders but earned him a reputation as a "good" Taliban among some in the Pakistan military."
That did not, however, earn him a reputation as a "good" Taliban among the Americans.
Sounds like it would have been a good time for carpet bombing. Nits make nats make terrorists. I'd say bomb them back to the stone age but I think that would be redundant since they never left the stone age.
Excellent news.
Still we need to continue and step up attacks on terrorist safe havens. Wives and children (breed stock for more terrorists) are not collateral damage since they choose to stay close to their evil men. Their choice, there chance at dying or becoming injured.
Our soldiers are dying for nothing in Iraq and Afghanistan They die for the never ending expansion and greedy military industrial complex. invading and killing the poorest among the nations is no heroic action.
Here again, we see how Pakistanis are stupid people. "We love you because you kill Americans and not Pakistanis" ... seems to me Pakistan is also a battleground. I say lets bomb Pakistan and let India annex their land.
Happy New Year from your friendly neighborhood drone!! Hope your bits and pieces will still be able to grab all those virgins...HAHAHAHA!
What a great way to start the day! Reading this article and knowing that there are a couple of Muslim-Taliban filth that willl no longer be an issue in this World of ours!
Thank you to the Drone that successfully carried out the mission! I would like to by the robot avenger a micro-brew!! :)
What should have happened -- and the Taliban would have definitely done it this way -- was to wait until everyone had gathered for the funeral, then drop a daisy cutter right in the middle of the crowd...except the Taliban don't have airplanes or daisy cutters...but they would have appreciated the strategic effect of that.
why not just nuke all of islam?
It will probably come to that ... the sooner, the better.
what a trajedy for the world. we need more productive and kind people like this guy. not.
A drone a day helps keep the Taliban away!!!!!!!!!!
This report from Fox's chief terrorism correspondent:
America the assassin
drone the weapon
doesn't give me any pride as a human
greyfox II you are beyond amazing.....and have mastered the art of the ostrich!
bad haiku.
greyfox --- considering what this guy does, his death works for me. he won't be able to shoot a little girl just because she wants to go to school. save your sympathy for the deserving.
really don't care. I thought America was the high road....I have no sympathy for terrorists
but a guided missle has replaced due process and is now judge, jury, and executioner?
earlier someone said we should daisy cutter his funeral gathering...so how far a stretch is just nuking the entire middle eaast? That would surely solve ther terror problem, would it not?
Too bad they no longer teach history in school! Here is some: many of the top scientists in Germany immigrated to the US because 1. they feared Hitler getting the a bomb and 2, they were mostly Jewish and they saw the coming holocaust....so these men, Van Braun, Keller, EINSTIEN, and many others gave the US a definite advantage...wheather or not the germans gave Russia the bomb is rather questionable as there was some spy activity and many say the Rosenbergs gave the info to Russia. The US used the bomb on Japan for 2 reasons: 1. to save millions of lives on both sides from avoiding an invasion of Japan; 2. to show the Russian communists that the bomb would be used.
As far as neutralizing taliban leaders with drones, think of how many lives of US youngsters that saves, and screw Packistan: they are playing deadly games and do support terrorism as long as it is not in their country...and why do we give them billions of dollars in aid???? to support their supposed being a friend to the US/West?/ what a joke...It amazes me how shallow some people are: they would rather have the terriorists activity here in this country than where the cess pools of hate and rage are spawned. remember 9/11!!!
You are killing Children just like at SANDY HOOK
bUT THAT IS ook because they are of differnt skin color, region and religion...
A child is a child
A dead child is innocence lost.
We are no differnt than the terrorist... Death is death... Destruction is destruction
I wish we didn't have war and murder but I believe the US at least tries not to kill kids or civilians in general, which differentiates us from the terrorists.
Iraq 500,000 dead men women and children.
Really?
Until one smells wars you will never want war.
Spoken like a supporter of terrorism, or a Progressive, not that there's a difference.
I wonder when they will start using drone strikes domestically?
"That, little sister, is a rat, and there's just one way to treat a rat." John Wayne, in the role of Rooster Cogburn, "True Grit." (he shot the rat)>
screw Pakistan! Bomb the @!$%# out of these basterds! Those stupid rag heads should get the picture - this guy was willing to let children die from polio so he could save his own ass! We should have bombed the 10K at the funeral as bonus.
Good! Find and kill those cowardly, nutless, women-hating pieces of sh-t in whatever little rat hole the crawl down. On a related issues, maybe it is time we stop sending hundreds of millions of dollars in financial aid to Pakistan too. They are unfriendly to us and the money could be better used in the U.S. to fund our medicare and social security programs or here is a good idea. Don't cut the pay of our armed forces personal but rather cut off the aid to some Pakistani General and he can make do without his summer home or the Escalade for his daughter.
All Wars have been created on purpose & planned way ahead of time, & a lot of them both sides were funded by the same people,they want things that country has; OIL, GOLD, LAND,DIAMONDS,ARTIFACTS or to just control it,they will be striking american people with drones someday here,people that don't want to give up their freedom,liberty & guns and they will call THEM TERRORISTS ! and will haul them to one of the many fema camps already set up & the army reeducation camps ! the war on terror is fake,alkydah was created by the same people
Finally someone in the Know!
Yes both sides are funded by the same global banksters.
It takes a lot of money for guns and ammo...
Gee what does "global bankers" mean when posted by a moron?
The word negotiate and the Taliban and people like, Mullah Nazir should not be in the same sentence. One does not negotiate with ants, rats or cockroaches when they invade your area. You find what will eradicate the vermin and this is what trips up the US every time.
Take that, Muslim rag head scum ...
Pakistan the new SANDY HOOK
Ha ha hah!!! The world will be a better place when all this filth is exterminated.
The killing of children is on your heads. It is our bombs killing children Adam Lanza style
Sheepled, great name for YOU. You are obviously a pro-terrorist nut case sheep. Besides that you are just another troll attempting to draw attention to yourself. You don't like what's happening? Tuff. Noboby cares what YOU think. Doubt me? Look at the fact that nobody votes for your statements.