Pakistan Security Brief - June 22, 2009

Pakistan Security Brief – June 22, 2009 

• An al Qaeda leader, Abu al-Yazid, has stated that al Qaeda would use Pakistan’s nuclear weapons against the U.S. if it ever acquired them. Responding to a question on American moves to safeguard Pakistan’s nukes, he said “God willing, the nuclear weapons will not fall into the hands of the Americans and the mujahideen would take them and use them against the Americans.”[1]
   
• Fighting intensified in South Waziristan as the Pakistani military continues to strike militant positions with aircraft, gunships and artillery. Pakistani forces have reportedly begun to engage Taliban forces on the ground and reports claim that over thirty Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants have been killed in the fighting.[2]
   
• The Long War Journal, citing The Nation, indicated that a series of meetings of al Qaeda and Taliban leaders recently took place in South Waziristan, for the purpose of convincing Beitullah Mehsud to shift his operations to Afghanistan and avoid fighting the Pakistan military.The report claims a number of senior leaders of the likes of Sirajuddin Haqqani, Abdul Hakeem Sharaee, Mir Ahmad Jan Hashemi, Abu Yahya Al Libi and Abdul Haq Turkistani met with Beitullah, Nazir and Gul Bahadur; Beitullah is said to have rejected their urgings to shift his area of operations.[3]
   
• Pakistani officials claimed a number of militants were killed throughout the FATA; at least twenty-seven were reported killed in operations in Bajaur agency and eight allegedly killed in clashes between militant groups in Kurram agency on Sunday.[4]
   
• Interior Minister Rehman Malik claims the whereabouts of Maulana Fazlullah are known and that he has been cornered. Malik claimed that it is only a matter of time before Fazlullah is killed or captured. The military has refrained from making any statements on the whereabouts of Fazlullah.[5]
• The ISPR claims security forces have killed seven militants in continuing operations in Swat while in Upper Dir, the local tribal militia conducting its own operation also claims to have killed seven militants, military spokespeople reported.
   
• Hundreds of IDPs uprooted from Buner have reportedly started to return to their homes from Mardan after authorities “urged them to return to secure areas.”[6]