Glad You Weren't Born In Pakistan?

Pick your poison

Forget for a moment that there's an on-going bloodbath in Pakistan's biggest city, Karachi, and that last week alone over 100 people were killed-- not in the tribal badlands but in the biggest city in the country. This weekend the news out of Pakistan began with two big stories: 1- a court ordered the seizure of former President Pervez Musharraf's assets for his involvement with the assassination of Benazir Bhutto; 2- the deaths of at least 2 dozen Pakistani troops in a cross-border raid by Afghan Taliban fighters. Each an immense story... and each nearly buried by a third... the killing of al-Qaida #2 operative, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, a Libyan who has been running al-Qaeda's day to day operations, we're told. Supposedly essential for the functioning of the terrorist operation, Al-Rahman was killed August 22 in the tribal area of Waziristan. Just thought I'd mention-- obviously for no particular reason-- that after Musharraf had Bhutto murdered, he blamed Baitullah Mehsud, the head of the Pakistani Taliban. They usually revel in claiming credit for that kind of think but Mehsud and the Taliban denied any involvement. Almost immediately-- and exactly 2 years ago-- he was killed in a US drone attack, "one of the most high-profile casualties of the covert American campaign targeting al-Qaeda and its allies in Pakistan's lawless tribal belt on the Afghan border."

Back to 2011, an anonymous CIA agent told A.P. that "al-Rahman's death will make it harder for Zawahiri to oversee what is considered an increasingly weakened organization."

"Zawahiri needed Atiyah's experience and connections to help manage al-Qaida," the official said.

Al-Rahman was killed Aug. 22 in the lawless Pakistani tribal region of Waziristan, according to a senior administration who also insisted on anonymity to discuss intelligence issues.

The official would not say how al-Rahman was killed. But his death came on the same day that a CIA drone strike was reported in Waziristan. Such strikes by unmanned aircraft are Washington's weapon of choice for killing terrorists in the mountainous, hard-to-reach area along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Rahman has been thought to be dead before. Last year, there were reports that Rahman was killed in a drone strike but neither senior U.S. administration officials nor al-Qaida ever confirmed them.

Al-Rahman, believed to be in his mid-30s, was a close confidant of bin Laden and once served as bin Laden's emissary to Iran.

Al-Rahman was allowed to move freely in and out of Iran as part of that arrangement and has been operating out of Waziristan for some time, officials have said.

Born in Libya, al-Rahman joined bin Laden as a teenager in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union.

After Navy SEALs killed bin Laden, they found evidence of al-Rahman's role as operational chief, U.S. officials have said.

I as many people believe that al-Rahman was killed as believe that Musharraf had Bhutto offed (It's been rep[orted widely in Pakistan that two senior police officers arrested for alleged dereliction of duty apparently told investigators that Musharraf himself had ordered the removal of a security detail on the day of her death.) And no one really knows whether al-Rahman was really killed by an American drone or not... but whether he was or he wasn't, a growing number of Pakistanis are sick and tired of American aid with CIA strings, aid that never seems to dribble down to society at large, but always winds up in the Swiss bank accounts of a small, corrupt elite-- and in the coffers of well-connected U.S. firms. The middle class here was very American-centric before 9/11. It isn't any more.