Resumption of drone attacks notches first terrorist
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Stars and Stripes
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A senior al-Qaida operative was killed last week in a CIA drone strike in the North Waziristan province of Pakistan.
According to media reports, the operative was identified as Aslam Awan. A story by Reuters referred to Awan as "a senior operations organizer" for the terrorist outfit.
It also said the Pakistani national hailed from Abbottabad, the town where Osama bin Laden was hiding out before a U.S. commando team killed him in a raid last May.
The drone strike that killed Awan is the first known U.S. drone strike inside Pakistan in nearly two months. The U.S. has refrained from such attacks since U.S. forces mistakenly fired on a border post in late November, killing 24 Pakistani troops.
Awan's "death reduces al-Qaida's thinning bench of another operative devoted to plotting the death of innocent civilians," Reuters quoted a U.S. official as saying.
