(Previous Incident Code: Ob28 )

An attack on a house allegedly linked to the TTP and owned by local cleric Maulana Abdul Majeed was destroyed, killing up to six people and wounding four or more. AP reported that ‘One resident said he heard a loud bang and that Taliban in the area are saying five colleagues are dead.’ Others reported that those killed had come from South Waziristan, and were being entertained at lunch by local Taliban when killed.

Shortly after this strike, it emerged CIA drones had killed Saad Bin Laden, the eldest son of Osama Bin Laden. The exact date of his death was not clear and his death is not counted in the casualty estimate for this strike. A senior US counter-terrorism official told NPR US spy agencies were “80 to 85 percent” sure Saad was dead. The official said Saad was not senior enough to be targeted specifically but had been “in the wrong place at the wrong time”. A Pakistani military intelligence official confirmed the reports, telling the Telegraph: “We have the same information but it has not yet been independently confirmed.”

Osama Bin Laden’s son Omar and his wife Zaina poured cold water on the reports of Saad’s death. She told the New York Times in December 2009 that Saad had been in a compound with her in Tehran, Iran, when he was supposed to have been killed. Bin Laden’s family reportedly lived under house arrested in Iran for many years. Saad left Iran in 2008 for Pakistan. However Saad’s death was confirmed in a 2010 letter from Osama to his chief-of-staff Atiyah abd al Rahman, himself killed by drones in 2011. The letter was published by the US the year after the 2011 Abbottabad raid. Ayman al Zawahiri confirmed Saad’s death in a video in 2012.