(Previous Incident Code: Ob139 )

A strike against a building adjacent to a mosque reportedly killed a number of German militants (initially reported to be eight individuals) and possibly one Briton. Reports remain confused about who the victims were and where they came from.

Confirmed killed are German-Turkish Binyamin Erdogan aka Imran der Deutsch, whose brother Emrah survived the attack; and German-Iranian Shahab Dashti. Also possibly killed were Hayrettin Burhan Sauerland, German-Turkish; Abdul Aziz Taciki and Hattab Taciki; and one Briton named as Abdul Jabbar (also reported to have died September 8.)

Others reported killed at the time have since been shown to be alive, including Fatih Temelli aka Abdel Fattah al-Almani; Rami Makanesi; Naamen Meziche; and Said Bahaji. The Express Tribune also published a garbled list of those killed, whom it named as ‘Fayyaz aka Bruseley; Gagreen Gill aka Siraj; Milton Smith aka Jamal; Wash aka Mustafa; and Johnson aka Wasal. It also named named Anderson aka Waqas, Paterson aka Shaheen and Peterson Mckenzie aka Usman.’

Militants later reported that only five people had died in the strike, “On 4 October 2010, accompanied by four other Mujahidin, the fate befell him that is predetermined for each creature. Abu Askar, our honest friend, died together with the German-Turkish brother Imran, who had been here no longer than four weeks, and three brothers of the Pakistani Taliban from Mehsud. All five of them sat together for a meal, when one of those perfidious US drones fired a rocket into the middle of their blessed circle. Alhamdulillah [praise be to God], our brother Abu Askar received what he longed for so much. And now he is lying there, a Hamburg Mujahid buried in Waziristan.”

The case later reportedly led to German intelligence halting any supply of material to the CIA which might endanger German lives. Al Jazeera reported the additional deaths of three women and possibly children in the attack. In March 2012 Ahmad Wali Siddiqui – one of a dozen Germans who had left the country to ‘fight jihad’ – went on trial in Germany on terrorism charges. He had been apprehended by US forces in Afghanistan in July 2010 and had provided details on the group under interrogation. On May 23 2012 the Koblenz state court convicted Siddiqui of membership in a terrorist organisation and sentenced him to six years.

In February 2013, the Bureau learned from sources that a number of civilians survived the strike, including the pregnant wife and two young children of Emrah Erdogan. And in July 2013 the German prosecutors decided not to file war crime charges over the death of Binyamin Erdogan. The federal prosecutor opened an investigation in 2012 that they discontinued after deciding Erdogan was a combatant, not a civilian covered by international law.