When I saw the photo a purported HUJI spokesman released with a fax acknowledging Ilyas Kashmiri had been killed in Friday's drone attack, I was skeptical. The other available photos of Kashmiri, who is 47, were taken ten years ago in 2001 and look nothing like the man in the dead photo -- unless it was his son. The photo of the dead man (don't look if you're squeamish) the group released claiming it was Kashmiri does not does not depict a 47 year old man. Also, he was clean shaven. When Syed Saleem Shazhad interviewed Kashmiri in 2009, he had a long white beard dyed with reddish henna. A side by side of Kashmiri and the dead guy depicted in the photo is here.

Long War Journal reports it's not Kashmiri. The dead person in the photo is Abu Dera Ismael Khan, one of the Mumbai suicide bombers and a Lashkar-e-Taiba fighter. He was 25 in the photo. Ismael Kahn was 25 when killed. Again, don't look if you're squeamish as this one has several dead people, but here's the photo correctly identified. [More...]

All day I've been reading two of the people killed with Ilyas Kashmiri are Amir Hamza and Mohammed Usman.

Recently tortured and killed journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad wrote in October, 2010 that Mohammed Usman, who was an associate of Kashmiri and Osama bin Laden, had been killed in a drone strike. [More...]

The timeline of the killing of journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad and the drone attack that killed Ilyas Kashmiri is raising flags in my head. It could be coincidence, but then again, maybe not. Take a look.

Journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad was kidnapped, tortured and killed on May 29 or 30. It's widely believed Pakistan's ISI was behind it.

The Asia Times had just published Shahzad's last article on May 27, saying Ilyas Kashmiri was behind the attack on the Pakistan Navy base in Karachi.

Shahzad was the only journalist to have interviewed Kashmiri after Kashmiri surfaced following the 2009 false report of his death. The interview is here. [More...]

Via al Jazeera: A Pakistani formy army Brigadier says Pakistan's ISI was involved in the attack that reportedly killed Ilyas Kashmiri and others. He was on the "wish list" the U.S. gave Pakistan last week, when it imposed a one month deadline on Pakistan to capture Kashmiri and four others.

The United States has given Pakistan time till July to capture Al Qaeda leader Ilyas Kashmiri and Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Omar. It has also warned of a military offensive in North Waziristan if they are not captured.

Also on the list: Al Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al Zawahiri, the operating chief of Haqqani network Sirajuddin Haqqani and the Libyan operations chief of Al Qaeda Atiya Abdel Rahman.[More...]

In 2009, the media reported the death of terrorist leader Ilyas Kashmiri in a drone strike. It was very upsetting to David Coleman Headley, who had been plotting with Kashmiri to conduct the Mumbai attacks and the planned attack on a Danish newspaper. The death report on Kashmiri turned out not to be true, and according to the U.S., which has indicted Kashmiri in the Headley/Rana case, Headley continued plotting with Kashmiri, LeT, and Major Iqbal.

Now Kashmiri is reportedly killed again, also in a drone strike, this time in Pakistan yesterday that occurred as he and his fellow terrorists were sipping tea in an apple garden.

A U.S. official says Kashmiri was the target of the drone attack but could not confirm his death. A local militant commander, Baitullah, says he wasn't killed. But HJI is reportedly confirming his death. [More...]

Former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf said on CNN tonight that our entry into Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden was an act of war.

Also today, Pakistan told the U.S. to shut down its fusion cells and its troops in Pakistan.

The liaison centers, also known as intelligence fusion cells, in Quetta and Peshawar are the main conduits for the United States to share satellite imagery, target data and other intelligence with Pakistani ground forces conducting operations against militants, including Taliban fighters who slip into Afghanistan to attack U.S. and allied forces.

Pakistan's distrust of the U.S. is growing: [More...]

Opening arguments were held this morning in the Chicago terror trial of Tahawwur Hussein Rana, charged with conspiracy in the Mumbai bombings and a planned attack on a Danish news agency.

“The defendant didn’t carry a gun or throw a grenade. In a complicated and sophisticated plot, not every player carries a weapon. People like the defendant who provides support are just as critical to the success,” [AUSA] Streicker said.

Streiker said Rana "not only knew of the attacks, he approved of them, and agreed with them." The defense said David Headley is a master manipulator who made a fool of Doctor Rana.

David Headley, aka Daood Gilani, is the Government's first witness.[More...]

Yesterday, the Australian reported information from Pakistani officials that the three wives of Osama bin Laden had turned on each other, and the older two were accusing the youngest, Amal Ahmed al-Sadah of Yemen, of betraying Osama bin Laden, either by supplying information or by allowing herself to be tracked to the compound. It read like an episode of Desperate Housewives.

Today, via The Sunday Times of London, the Australian reports the Seals left behind a comprehensive pocket guide, that indeed seems there must have been a mole. And that the Obama Administration's insistence that it wasn't sure Osama would be at the compound was disingenuous, at best. [More...]

Glenn Sargent at The Plum Line obtained a copy of the May 9th letter CIA Chief Leon Panetta wrote John McCain. He quotes three paragraphs:

Nearly 10 years of intensive intelligence work led the CIA to conclude that Bin Ladin was likely hiding at the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. there was no one “essential and indispensible” key piece of information that led us to this conclusion. Rather, the intelligence picture was developed via painstaking collection and analysis. Multiple streams of intelligence — including from detainees, but also from multiple other sources — led CIA analysts to conclude that Bin Ladin was at this compound. Some of the detainees who provided useful information about the facilitator/courier’s role had been subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques. Whether those techniques were the “only timely and effective way” to obtain such information is a matter of debate and cannot be established definitively. What is definitive is that that information was only a part of multiple streams of intelligence that led us to Bin Ladin.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates was on "60 Minutes" tonight. He said he had doubts about the intelligence information that Osama bin Laden was at the Abbouttabad compound.

While he had confidence in the SEALs before the mission, Gates told us he was very nervous about the intelligence on the mission. "I was very concerned, frankly. I had real reservations about the intelligence. My worry was the level of uncertainty about whether bin Laden was even in the compound. There wasn't any direct evidence that he was there. It was all circumstantial. But it was the best information that we had since probably 2001," he explained.

"And did you feel you had to strike while the iron was hot, if you will?" (Katie) Couric asked. "I think everybody agreed that we needed to act and act pretty promptly," he replied.

Gates also had a lot of praise for President Obama: [More...]

Pakistan's intelligence chief, Ahmed Shuja Pasha, appeared before the country's Parliament today. He acknowledged their intelligence failure over Osama bin Laden, offered to resign and blasted the U.S. for invading Pakistan's sovereignty to conduct the raid. He also denounced U.S. drones in Pakistan. After his appearance, Parliament passed a resolution that condemned the raid and called for a re-evaluation of Pakistan's cooperation with the U.S. and revamp the security agencies so there would be no repeat.

The resolution expressed support for Pakistan's military and demanded the U.S. cease sending drones into Pakistan. And called for an independent inquiry into the raid at Abbouttabad. [More....]

Pakistan allowed U.S. officials to interview the three wives of Osama bin Laden who were at the compound in Abbottabad during the raid that killed Osama.

The wives were described as "hostile." Why wouldn't they be? All three lost a husband, one (or two, depending on which inconsistent report you believe) lost a son, and one was shot in the leg.

Reportedly, the eldest of the three wives spoke for the group. That would be Khairia Saaba, otherwise known as Umm Hamzah, who is 7 years older than Osama and the mother of the missing or dead or captured Hamza bin Laden. [More....]