Pakistani officials: US missile kills wanted Filipino militant

Filipino militant killed by US missile in Pakistan

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan — A Filipino militant wanted by the United States is believed to have been killed in an American drone strike close to the Afghan border earlier this month, Pakistani intelligence officials said Thursday.

If confirmed, the death of Abdul Basit Usman would represent another success for the covert program of missile strikes that the U.S. has carried out since 2008. There have been an unprecedented number of attacks this month following a deadly Dec. 30 militant attack on a CIA base in Afghanistan.

Two military intelligence officers in northwestern Pakistan said Usman was believed killed on Jan. 14 on the border of Pakistan’s South and North Waziristan tribal regions. Another 11 militants were also killed in the strike on a militant compound. Authorities have previously said the attack had targeted the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud.

It was not possible to confirm the reports, and there had been no previous indication Usman was in Pakistan.

The U.S. State Department’s list of most-wanted terrorists identifies Usman as a bomb-making expert with links to the Philippines-based Abu Sayyaf militant ground and the Southeast Asian Jemaah Islamiyah network. It puts a bounty of U.S. $1 million for information leading to his conviction.

Waziristan and other parts of Pakistan’s border region have long been home to militants from all over the world, primarily Arabs. Up to several hundred Filipino and other Southeast Asian militants traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan in the 1980s and 1990s to fight the Soviets and attend al-Qaida run camps, but they are no longer believed to be in the region in significant numbers any more.

The apparent presence of Usman in Waziristan may raise fresh questions as to links between al-Qaida in Pakistan and militants in Southeast Asia, which has seen several bloody bombings and failed extremist plots since 2000. Many were carried out by militants who had returned from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Pakistani officials cited militant informers as the source of the information on Usman’s death. One of them said Usman had been in Waziristan for one year after arriving from Afghanistan. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media on the record.

In the Philippines, two senior intelligence officials said they were unaware of any report regarding Usman’s death. A U.S. military official based in the southern Philippines, the stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf, said he also had not received any report. They too spoke on condition of anonymity.

Authorities in Philippines, Pakistan and the United States had not previously mentioned any likelihood of Usman being in Pakistan.

U.S. officials do not often talk about the missile strikes or their targets, but they have in the past confirmed the deaths of several mid and high-level al-Qaida and Taliban fighters. The Pakistan government publicly complains about the attacks, but is believed to provide intelligence for many of them.

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Associated Press writers Jim Gomez in the Philippines and Chris Brummitt in Islamabad contributed to this report.