Tuesday Drone Attack Part of ‘Stepped Up Campaign’ Against Pakistan

Tuesday’s US drone attack against a car in Aspalga Village is said to be the first volley in the Obama Administration’s latest approved escalation of the air war against Pakistan’s tribal areas.

The plan, never formally announced by US officials but repeatedly confirmed by anonymous officials since President Obama announced the Afghan escalation, is in no small measure controversial, the Pakistani government has warned that the attacks would further fuel anti-US sentiment and that their cooperation with the drone strikes “had limits.”

But officials are saying its “possible” that a high ranking al-Qaeda figure who is neither Osama bin Laden nor Ayman al-Zawahri was killed in the Tuesday, one of those convenient high profile targets reported slain whenever the Pakistani government starts seeming restless about the policy.

But such claims must be taken with a grain of salt at this point, as Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader Hakimullah Mehsud has been “killed” at least three times in the last several months, and is none the worse for wear for it.