(Previous Incident Code: Ob254 )

Two housing compounds reportedly containing ‘local Taliban fighters’ were attacked by as many as five drones between 2.30 am and 10 am local time, killing up to 22 people, according to reports. No civilians have been reported killed or injured because of these alleged strikes. Most of the victims were members of the Pakistan Taliban (TTP), according to reports, and the compounds were run by local commanders Abdul Nasir and Abdul Mukhlis, one or both of whom may have been killed (Xinhua, The News). AFP also reported a local official as saying that some ‘foreigners’ may have died in the attack.

However in January 2014 the Bureau published an internal Pakistani assessment of CIA drone strikes. It listed only four killed in this attack. The data was collected by the local political agents, from information provided them by sources within the tribal agencies. The low total for this strike could be a result of agents providing early casualty assessments and not updating the figures in the record. This is evident in other strikes though the entry of this attack does not make this explicit.

On May 22 2013 the US Attorney General revealed that a US citizen, Jude Kenan Mohammed, was killed in a Pakistan strike. According to the New York Times, that attack took place in South Waziristan on November 16 2011 and killed around 12 insurgents in a signature strike. According to an open US indictment dated September 2009, ‘On or about October 7, 2008, defendant JUDE KENAN MOHAMMAD departed the united States to travel to Pakistan to engage in violent jihad.’ He was also accused of engaging in ‘planning and perpetrating a Federal crime of terrorism against the united States, citizens and residents of the united States, and their property.’ The New York Times also noted that:

While Mr. Mohammad was not directly targeted, he had come under increasing scrutiny by American counterterrorism officials, who said he was involved in recruiting militants for Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban, as well as making videos on YouTube to incite violence against the United States.

Mohammed was from Raleigh, North Carolina where local media first reported rumours of his death in February 2012. Described as ‘a vulnerable youth’, he was reportedly introduced to a violent interpretation of Islam by local man William Boyd. Mohammed was alleged to be part of a nine-man terrorist cell in North Carolina before he left for Pakistan. Seven members of the group, including Boyd and his sons, have been convicted of terrorism offenses. The eighth has been arrested in Kosovo.

Jude Kenan Mohammed’s home-town broadcaster WRAL first reported suspicions of his death in early 2012.