Asia

Home page

Asia

Uzbek militant leader killed in Pakistan

02 October 2009 13:28 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. An al Qaeda-linked Uzbek militant leader was killed in Pakistan in a U.S. drone missile strike in August, Pakistani intelligence agency officials said on Friday, APA reports quoting Reuters.
Tahir Yuldashev, leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, was killed in a missile strike in the South Waziristan region on the Afghan border, where he had been based for some years, they said.
Another Pakistani security official said Yuldashev’s colleagues had tried to keep his death secret although there had been speculation over recent days about his fate.
Pakistan’s military spokesman was not available for comment.
A close ally of both the Taliban and al Qaeda, Yuldashev, who was believed to have been in his early 40s, was a leader in an Islamist militant underground opposed to the communist government in Uzbekistan before and after the break-up of the Soviet Union. He later fled to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and fought on the Taliban side in Afghanistan’s civil war. He moved to Waziristan after U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban in 2001.
Yuldashev shot to prominence in March 2004, when Pakistani forces surrounded his base in South Waziristan, but he escaped while his fighters mounted a fierce defence.
No one knows how many Uzbek militants are based in northwest Pakistan but there are believed to be up to 1,000. The army said in June it had unconfirmed reports Yuldashev had been wounded in a Pakistani military air strike in South Waziristan.