Sweet Revenge! Four Taliban Killed By Predator Drone As They Stop Vehicle To Pray

Now that is one sweeeeet headline, wouldn't you agree?!! A bunch of Taliban slime traveling in North Waziristan in a vehicle (and being followed by a U.S. predator drone) decided to pull over for some midday prayers to the moon god and were melted into their prayer mats by a couple of hellfire missiles. Nice.

Here's some from the article at The Long War Journal:

Unmanned US strike aircraft have hit the Taliban in North Waziristan for the second time in three days, after a nearly two-week lull in attacks.
The unmanned Predators or Reapers fired two Hellfire missiles at a car in the village of Ambor Shaga near Miramshah.
"Four militants were killed in the missile strike," a Pakistani intelligence official told AFP. Three other militants were reported to have been wounded. The Taliban fighters had pulled the car over to pray, according to a report in The Associated Press.

I'm sorry but I just love this story - sure, it's great to see another drone strike in North Waziristan and terrific to see four more dead Taliban but there's just something about the fact that these guys got plotted while taking a moment before they prayed on their way to kill some innocent school children or old women. It's definitely my favorite story of the day.

US strike kills 4 in Taliban stronghold of North Waziristan



Unmanned US strike aircraft have hit the Taliban in North Waziristan for the second time in three days, after a nearly two-week lull in attacks.

The unmanned Predators or Reapers fired two Hellfire missiles at a car in the village of Ambor Shaga near Miramshah.

"Four militants were killed in the missile strike," a Pakistani intelligence official told AFP. Three other militants were reported to have been wounded. The Taliban fighters had pulled the car over to pray, according to a report in The Associated Press.

No senior Taliban or al Qaeda leaders have been reported killed in the airstrike.

Today's airstrike took place in a region administered by North Waziristan Taliban leader Hafiz Gul Bahadar. Al Qaeda and allied Pakistani and Central Asian jihadi groups shelter in Bahadar's tribal areas, and they also run training camps and safe houses in the region. The Pakistani military has indicated it has no plans to take on Bahadar or the Haqqani Network, a deadly Taliban group that is closely allied with al Qaeda and is also based in North Waziristan.

Today's strike is the second reported inside Pakistan this month, and the second in three days. On April 12, US aircraft fired two missiles on a compound run by a known local Taliban leader in the village of Boya, near Miramshah, killing five Taliban fighters.

US strikes in Pakistan, by the numbers

So far this year, the US has carried out 28 strikes in Pakistan; all of the strikes have taken place in North Waziristan. In 2009, the US carried out 53 strikes in Pakistan; and in 2008, the US carried out 36 strikes in the country. [For up-to-date charts on the US air campaign in Pakistan, see: "Charting the data for US airstrikes in Pakistan, 2004 - 2010."]

Unmanned US Predator and Reaper strike aircraft have been pounding Taliban and al Qaeda hideouts in North Waziristan over the past several months in an effort to kill senior terror leaders and disrupt the networks that threaten Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the West. [For more information, see LWJ report, "Senior al Qaeda and Taliban leaders killed in US airstrikes in Pakistan, 2004 - 2010."]

Most recently, on March 8, a US strike in a bazaar in Miramshah killed a top al Qaeda operative known as Sadam Hussein Al Hussami. Hussami was a protégé of Abu Khabab al Masri, al Qaeda's top bomb maker and WMD chief, who was killed in a US airstrike in July 2008. Hussami was a senior member of al Qaeda's external operations network, and was on a council that advised the suicide bomber who carried out the attack at Combat Outpost Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan. That attack killed seven CIA officials and a Jordanian intelligence officer. The slain intelligence operatives had been involved in gathering intelligence for the hunt for al Qaeda and Taliban leaders along the Afghan-Pakistani border.

In the neighboring tribal agency of Arakzai, the Pakistani military continues to target Taliban groups operating there. Two days ago, 41 Taliban fighters were reported killed after massing to assault military outposts manned by the Frontier Corps; two Frontier Corps troops were also killed in the fighting. According to press reports, the military has claimed that 419 Taliban fighters have been killed in air, artillery, and ground attacks in Arakzai since March 21.

The Pakistani military also claimed recently that 15 Taliban fighters, including a "local commander" named Qari Usman and "foreigners," had been killed after assaulting an Army outpost in South Waziristan. "Those killed included nationals from Saudi Arabia, Chechnya and Uzbekistan," Geo News reported. The military stated that one soldier had been killed in the attack.