US celebrates ten years of Pak drone strikes with more Pak drone strikes

Taliban warlord Mullah Nazir was sent to his reward today by a pair of Hellfire missiles fired from a US Predator drone.

According to US military sources this is a critical blow against the Taliban infrastructure in the so-called tribal areas of Waziristan.  According to Pakistani military sources it is nothing of the sort.  Nazir's group has honoured a truce with the Islamabad government since 2007 and confined it's activities to Afghanistan.

As for the argument that losing a leader incapacitates these groups, Pakistan media report that a replacement, Bawad Khan, was elected shortly after Nazir's funeral, which drew crowds estimated in the thousands.

While the US was busy making a martyr of Mullah Nazir, they also struck at one of his rival groups, killing a TTP commander in North Waziristan with the oh-so-clever "double-tap" strategy. According to Dawn, "the US targeted a vehicle with two missiles, then fired two more missiles when rescuers gathered at the site."

So it was a busy day for America's heroic drone wars in Pakistan's tribal areas. The success of these missions left a vacuum in Taliban leadership ranks that was measured in hours if not minutes.

And not that many folks in the tribal areas need a reminder, but it will have reinforced the belief that America is a nation of lawless barbarians and will no doubt bring many new recruits to the Taliban.

Ten militants killed.

A thousand more recruits for the Taliban.