(Previous Incident Code: Ob324 )

At least five people were killed in the second drone strike in north Waziristan in a week. Pakistan Tribune, reported that two missiles were fired on a residential compound and stressed that the identities could not be established yet.

However, intelligence sources told Dawn that two or three missiles were fired on a house that belonged to the Haqqani Network in an area reportedly under Haqqani control. Anonymous intelligence officials told NBC News that “seven badly burnt and mutilated bodies were pulled from the wreckage after the drones disappeared”.

The Long War Journal reported that three Al Qaeda operatives were killed. According to Xinhua News, five people were killed early in the day, while most sources reported that six suspected militants were killed. WSJ said that the drone strike was conducted late in the evening of the previous day.

Dawn added that in addition to the six people killed, three others injured. “The identity of the dead could not be ascertained at this hour but this areas is mostly inhibited by the Afghan Haqqani Network of Taliban,” officials said to Dawn.

NBC News put the death toll at seven suspected militants and claimed that four were injured who, according to villagers, “were taken to a hospital in Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan.”

A senior militant commander linked to the kidnap of a U.S. soldier was among those killed, Reuters reported. “Sangeen Zadran was the operational commander in Pakistan’s tribal areas for the Haqqani network, which regularly attacks U.S. forces in Afghanistan from its mountain hideouts in Pakistan. He also served as the Taliban’s shadow governor of Afghanistan’s Paktika province.”

According to the Wall Street Journal he was believed to have played a role in the capture of US Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, the only US soldier held by the insurgents in Afghanistan.

Mullah Sangeen Zadran was reportedly the Taliban’s shadow governor of Paktika province in eastern Afghanistan. Some of the others killed were reportedly his bodyguards. He was a senior lieutenant to Haqqani Network leader Sirajuddin Haqqani, son the group’s founder and patriarch Jalaluddin. Analyst Saifullah Mahsud said:

“Sangeen was running the show, practically… Siraj is the big name. But on the ground, whatever is conducted, is directed by Sangeen… He’s their most lethal commander. To get him, they’ve scored really big.”

Mosques in the area reportedly announced his funeral would take place at 3pm that day.

His brother or nephew Bilal Zadran, 35, was reportedly named as his successor. Bilal was a former spokesman for Mullah Omar, an expert bomb maker and spoke fluent English, according to the Frontier Post. The Long War Journal cautioned neither al Qaeda nor the Haqqani Network had commented on reports of Sangeen’s death, or of Bilal’s promotion. However an anonymous US intelligence official told the publication: “We believe we got him.” “At some point, we expect he will be eulogized, given his prominence within the Haqqani Network and the Taliban, and due to his close relationship to al Qaeda,” the official added.

In addition, three al Qaeda militants were reportedly among the dead. Muzi (aka al Masri), 32, was also reportedly among the dead, along with two alleged Jordanian al Qaeda operatives: Abu Bilal al Khurasani and Abu Dujana al Khurasani. Two more dead men, Arshad Dawar and Ajmal Dawar, were reportedly “locals”. Villagers reported “four seriously injured men were also recovered and taken to a hospital in Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan”. The targeted house was reportedly destroyed, and part of it caught fire.

The strike targeted an al Qaeda facility known as the “Nawab camp”, the Express Tribune reported.