The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) said on Thursday that a senior commander in the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network wanted over this week’s deadly attack on a leading hotel in the Afghan capital had been killed in an air strike. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) identified Ismail Jan as deputy to the senior Haqqani commander inside Afghanistan and said he was killed in the eastern province of Paktya on Wednesday. It was not possible to confirm Jan’s death or position independently and ISAF provided no immediate details on how it knew he had been killed. It said security forces tracked his location based on intelligence reports from Afghan government officials, citizens and “disenfranchised insurgents” before calling in the air strike.
The US-led force accused Jan of providing material support for Tuesday’s attack on the Intercontinental in Kabul, frequented by Westerners and Afghan government officials. Heavily armed militants had stormed the hilltop hotel late on Tuesday, sparking a ferocious battle involving Afghan commandos and a NATO helicopter gunship that left at least 21 dead including the nine attackers. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, but NATO said it was carried out in conjunction with the Haqqani network, blamed for a string of high-profile attacks in Kabul and considered the most potent enemy in the east. A judge, police, hotel staff, and a Spaniard who was reportedly a pilot for a Turkish airline were among those killed in the attack, which has renewed questions about security as US forces prepare to start withdrawing this year.
NATO said Jan was killed with “several” other Haqqani fighters the day after the attack in Paktya, which borders Pakistan’s semi-autonomous district of North Waziristan, where the Haqqani leadership is based. NATO said Jan had also led 25 to 35 fighters in attacks on troops in the Khost-Gardez area along the border after moving from Pakistan into Afghanistan in late 2010, one of the deadliest fighting grounds in the decade-long war. The military said “initial reports” indicated that no civilians were hurt in Wednesday’s air strike, although air attacks have brought the US-led military into sharp opposition with the Afghan government over civilian casualties. The Haqqanis, estimated to have 3,000 to 4,000 fighters, has been blamed for some of the most spectacular attacks of the insurgency, including an al Qaeda double agent suicide attack that killed seven CIA operatives in 2009.
