(Previous Incident Code: Ob306 )

In one of their most significant recent strikes, CIA drones killed Maulvi Nazir, the powerful leader of a so-called ‘good Taliban’ faction, in a late evening (1035pm) attack near Wana in South Waziristan.

The Express Tribune said the attack was ‘perhaps the most prized feather in [the] cap’ of the drone programme. Also reported killed were Nazir’s five sub-commanders, including deputies Maulvi Atta Ullah and Rafey (or Rapa) Khan, Allauddin, Ihsan and up to six others. The Tribune also named two local commanders, Kochai and Chewantee, among the dead.

Taliban commander Eynollah Khan told Express Tribune, “Mullah Nazir became a target of the American drone [strikes] when he was coming back to Wana after completing a survey on [an] American base in Afghanistan.’”

The New York Times reported that Nazir’s vehicle was struck as it travelled on the Birmal-Wana road. A senior Pakistani intelligence official told the paper, “He has been killed. It is confirmed. The vehicle he was travelling in was hit.” However other sources including the Guardian said Nazir died when a house was struck during a meeting of senior leaders. Wana mosques announced the death of the popular leader over loudspeakers, and as many as 10,000 people reportedly attended Nazir’s funeral the next day, local sources told AP. Bahwal Khan aka Ayubi was named as his successor.

Maulvi Nazir had long been a target of the United States, and almost all recent drone strikes in South Waziristan were aimed at his forces. While Nazir maintained peaceful relations with Islamabad (leading to the ‘good Taliban’ label) he had used Waziristan as a base to launch attacks on US, Nato and Afghan forces across the border for many years. Some analysts predicted that Nazir’s death, although a tactical success for the CIA, might increase instability and violence in the region, at least initially.

AFP reported that senior Pakistani security officials were locked in talks about the implications of Nazir’s death. One told the agency: ‘There will be a setback in a way. He was one of those who were keeping his area under effective control and preventing the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan [TTP] from operating there. So it will make a difference.’ Dawn reported that ‘thousands’ protested in Wana against US drone strikes on January 5.

On the same day as Nazir’s killing a US court rejected a Freedom of Information request by the New York Times and ACLU calling for the US government to reveal the legal basis of covert drone strikes. US District Court Judge Colleen McMahon said in a written statement that an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ situation presently exists in which the US can claim such strikes to be legal, while keeping secret the basis of such claims:

I can find no way around the thicket of laws and precedents that effectively allow the Executive Branch of our government to proclaim as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible with our Constitution and laws, while keeping the reasons for their conclusion a secret.

Three weeks after Nazir’s death a ‘bullet-riddled‘ body was dumped by a road in South Waziristan. The victim was responsible for the deaths of five high-ranking Taliban militants including Maulvi Nazir, a note found on the corpse claimed. The alleged spy was Afghan national Asmatullah Kharoti. ‘He presented Nazir and others digital Holy Quran as a gift which were fitted with chips which help US drones strike their targets,’ a Taliban fighter told AFP. Kharoti’s body was dumped next to the Ajab Noor Mosque in Wana Rustham Bazaar, where Nazir survived a suicide bombing in December 2012.