(Previous Incident Code: Ob264 )

A rare CIA drone strike just inside South Waziristan killed up to 15 alleged militants. The attack, the first in more than three weeks, struck a vehicle (see also below) in the Mandao borderlands area. A senior Pakistani security official told AFP:

A drone fired two missiles on a vehicle. At least eight militants were killed. It is not immediately clear if some important target was hit in the missile strike.’

The News reported that those killed were allied to the Pakistan Taliban (TTP) and as well as ‘local Mehsud’ may have included ‘some foreign militants’. Der Spiegel later reported that the morning strike killed Samir H, 29, a German citizen. The Islamist Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) later released a martyrdom video giving his full name as Samir Hatour or Abu Laith. In the video, IMU spokesman Yassin Chouka, also a German citizen, said:

After a 40-day deployment in South Waziristan, on the morning of 9 March 2012, which was a Friday, Abu Laith [Hatour] went to his family, and on the way, the car in which he was along with three other mujahideen was fired upon by an American drone and the brothers died as martyrs.”

According to the Der Spiegel article, a least one of three missiles hit the vehicle, a pick-up truck, killing Samir and 11 others. The attack that killed Samir occurred on the same day that Islamabad announced the imminent replacement of controversial spy chief General Ahmad Shuja Pasha. Pasha, who had run the ISI for four years, was to be replaced by Lt. General Zaheerul Islam the following week.

Born in west German city of Aachen to a German convert mother and a Tunisian father, Samir left Germany for Pakistan in October 2009. He travelled first to Iran then Pakistan, accompanied by his wife, a German of Tunisian descent, his son Hamsa and his daughter Shaima. Der Spiegel reported German investigators believed Samir to be one of the most dangerous Islamists in the country. His sister Soumaia left for Waziristan in 2010 where she is believed to remain. Der Spiegel reported this strike had the potential to reignite the debate in Germany on the legality of the drones by the US and could increase diplomatic tensions between the two countries.