In Pakistan, U.S. drones have reportedly killed the the deputy leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Wali ur-Rehman.
Mr. Rehman already had a $5 million United States bounty on his head, and American officials accuse him both of organizing attacks on American troops in Afghanistan and playing a role in the 2009 attack on a C.I.A. base in the eastern part of the country that killed seven agency employees. Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, would not confirm the strike during his briefing Wednesday afternoon, but he emphasized a long list of American accusations against Mr. Rehman.
Meanwhile, across the Arabian sea in Somali, the militant group al-Shabab claims to have shot down an American drone.
A US defence department official confirmed the incident but declined to say what kind of aircraft it was, what caused it to crash and whether it was carrying weapons.“I can confirm an RPA (remotely piloted aircraft) crashed in a remote area of the Somali coastline south of Mogadishu,” the official told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity. “The incident is under investigation.”
