An al Qaeda operative based along the Afghan-Pakistani border claimed recently that although US drone strikes have had an impact on the terror group's operations, it is "still standing in Khorasan."

The statement was given by Abu Zubaydah al Lubnani, a Lebanese al Qaeda operative, in an interview published two days ago on jihadist web forums. Lubnani's interview was translated by the SITE Intelligence Group.

In the interview, Lubnani was asked: "We hear a lot about drones. Do their bombings have an effect on the jihadi work where you are?"

Lubnani responded that the strikes "for sure ... delayed some operations or even stopped them - some of them due to the martyrdom or the disappearance of those who would have carried them out - but that doesn't mean that these acts stop."

"I want here to confirm that Qaedat al-Jihad is still standing in Khorasan, solid and strong, despite what hit it, and it is still producing operations and it doesn't know the path of despair.... Everything is still fine, albeit with some slowness in some sectors in jihad."

Lubnani then said that al Qaeda and other terror groups have endured the strikes for years, and that time was on the side of the jihadists as the US and NATO are leaving Afghanistan.

"Everyone knows that the war is about to end with a great defeat to NATO; the black slave [Note: Referring to US President Barack Obama] announced their intention to completely withdraw from Afghanistan in 2014-1435," he said. "These planes [the drones] were introduced into duty actually in the war against the mujahideen in the past two years, and before that, during eight years, the mujahideen were able, praise be to Allah, to harm the Americans badly. They took the bait and lost the war, and now they are in the overtime and the time is in our favor, praise be to Allah..."

Al Qaeda and allied terror groups were given a reprieve from the strikes over the past two months. The US dramatically scaled back the CIA-operated drone program after a clash between US and Pakistani forces along the border resulted in the deaths of 24 Pakistani soldiers. Due to deteriorating relations between the two countries, there were zero drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal areas between Nov. 16, 2011 and Jan. 11, 2012.

So far this year, there have been only four strikes. All have taken place in the Taliban-controlled tribal agency of North Waziristan. On Jan. 11, the US launched a strike that killed Aslan Awan, a senior aide to al Qaeda's operations chief. Two other strikes took place that month, on Jan. 12 and Jan. 23. No senior leaders or operatives were reported killed in either strike. And just today, the US launched another drone strike in the tribal agency.

Lubnani has emerged as a new spokesman for al Qaeda. In the last three months, he has released a statement announcing the death of an Omani jihadist who was killed in Afghanistan, and a martyrdom statement of a Jordanian fighter who was part of a cell of Middle Eastern terrorists involved in the December 2009 suicide attack at Combat Outpost Chapman in Khost province, Afghanistan, that killed seven CIA officials and contractors. In that attack, the suicide bomber, who was another Jordanian, had lured the CIA officials into relaxing security protocols by promising to provide them intelligence that would lead to Ayman al Zawahiri.

Unmanned US strike aircraft launched missiles at terrorists based in Pakistan's Taliban-controlled tribal agency of North Waziristan today, killing 10 "militants" in an area known to serve as an al Qaeda haven.

The Predators or Reapers, more commonly called drones, fired a pair of missiles at a compound in the town of Tappi near Miramshah, Pakistani officials told AFP. The Taliban have cordoned off the site of the strike and are conducting recovery operations. This is often a sign that a senior operative or leader was present.

"Eight militants were killed and two wounded," the Pakistani official told AFP. "Militants have surrounded the compound and are removing the dead bodies." The death toll was later raised to 10.

The exact target of the strike has not been disclosed, and the identity of those killed is not known. Those killed were later said to be Haqqani Network operatives and fighters from Central Asian countries.

Terrorists are known to have sheltered in the village of Tapi in the past. The US has struck at targets in the village five other times since the beginning of 2008, according to data on the strikes that has been compiled by The Long War Journal.

The Haqqani Network, a Taliban group that operates in North Waziristan as well as in eastern Afghanistan, administers the area where today's attack took place. Al Qaeda leaders and operatives, who are closely allied with the Haqqani Network, shelter in the area, as do other terror groups.

Today's strike is the first in Pakistan's tribal areas in 15 days, and just the fourth this year. All four strikes this year have taken place in or around Miramshah in North Waziristan, a stronghold of the Haqqani Network.

The first strike this year took place on Jan. 11; it was the first by the US in Pakistan in 55 days. The previous strike took place on Nov. 16, 2011. The pause was the longest since the program was ramped up at the end of July 2008 [see LWJ report, US drone strikes in Pakistan on longest pause since 2008, from Dec. 19, 2011].

The program was put on hold from the end of November to the second week in January, following a clash between US forces and Pakistani Frontier Corps troops on the border of the Afghan province of Kunar and the Pakistani tribal area of Mohmand on Nov. 25-26. The US troops struck in Pakistan after taking mortar and machine gun fire on the Afghan side of the border from Pakistani troops. Twenty-four Pakistani Frontier Corps troops were killed.

The clash led to Pakistan's closure of the border crossings in Chaman and Khyber to NATO supply columns destined for Afghanistan; the supply lines remain closed to this day. In the aftermath of the Mohmand incident, Pakistan also threatened to shoot down US drones flying in Pakistani airspace, and ejected US drones and personnel from the Shamsi Airbase in Baluchistan.

US officials told The Long War Journal on Dec. 12, 2011 that the program had been put "on hold" due to tensions over the Mohmand incident, but that the drones would strike again if a high value terrorist target that could not be ignored was spotted.

The Jan. 11 strike killed Aslam Awan, a deputy to the leader of al Qaeda's external operations network. Awan was a Pakistani citizen from Abbottabad, the same town where Osama bin Laden was killed by US forces in a cross-border raid in May 2011. Awan is the most senior al Qaeda leader killed in a drone strike since mid-October, when Abu Miqdad al Masri, a member of al Qaeda's Shura Majlis who also was involved in al Qaeda's external operations, was killed. [For a list of senior terrorist leaders and operatives killed in drone strikes, see LWJ report, Senior al Qaeda and Taliban leaders killed in US airstrikes in Pakistan, 2004 - 2012.]

Hakeemullah Mehsud, the leader of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, was also rumored to have been killed in the Jan. 11 strike. His death has not been confirmed, however, and the Pakistani Taliban have denied he was killed.

The second strike last month, which took place on Jan. 12, killed six "militants," including several "foreigners," according to reports. No senior terrorist leaders or operatives have been reported killed in the Jan. 12 strike.

The third strike in January took place on the Jan. 23 and is said to have killed four terrorists from Turkmenistan. The Turkmen fighters may have been members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan or one of the smaller Central Asian terrorist groups, such as Jund al Khilafa, that operate in Pakistan's tribal areas.

Top left: Abu Laith al Libi; top center: Abdullah Saad al Libi; top right: Abu Abu Abdullah al Shami; bottom left:Abdul Khabir al Turkistani; bottom center: al Qaeda in the Khorasan fighters; bottom right: Soraqa al Kuwaiti. Images from the SITE Intelligence Group.

A jihadist media outlet has released "several previously-unreleased" photographs of senior al Qaeda military leaders and fighters who have been killed during fighting in Afghanistan or in US drone airstrikes in Pakistan's Taliban-controlled tribal agencies.

Pictures of Abu Laith al Libi and Abdullah Said al Libi, two top military commanders; Abu Abdullah al Shami, a leader who escaped from Bagram; and Soraqa
al Kuwaiti and Abdul Khabir al Turkistani, two jihadist fighters, were published on Feb. 4 by the Al Ibda' Foundation for Media Production. The photographs were published as part of a new series called "Pictures from Khorasan, 1," according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which provided a translation of the statement along with the photographs.

Abu Laith al Libi

Abu Laith al Libi was a top-tier al Qaeda leader and a revered military commander. He led al Qaeda's 055 Brigade (or 55th Brigade), the military formation that eventually grew into the Lashkar al Zil, or Shadow Army. Brigade 055 fought alongside the Taliban against the Northern Alliance in the 1990s up until the Sept. 11 2001 attacks on the US. The unit was decimated during the US attack on Taliban and al Qaeda forces in 2001-2002, and was disbanded. Laith reformed the unit, which later became one of six brigades of al Qaeda's Shadow Army, which operates in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In addition, Abu Laith was the senior leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and also served as a chief spokesman for al Qaeda. As leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, he announced the terror group's merger with al Qaeda in November 2007.

US Predators and Reapers killed Abu Laith in an airstrike in the Mir Ali area of North Waziristan on Jan. 29, 2008. Al Qaeda announced his death.

Abdullah Said al Libi

Abdullah Said al Libi was a Libyan national who is thought to have served in his country's military before joining al Qaeda. Once in al Qaeda, he rose in the ranks of the terror group's military, and eventually took command of the Lashkar al Zil.

In April 2009, Abdullah Said laid out the strategy for al Qaeda and the Taliban to retake control of the Khorasan, a region encompassing large areas of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Iran. In the statement, he is identified as the leader of the Qaidat al-Jihad fi Khorasan, or the Base of the Jihad in the Khorasan.

Abdullah Said was killed in a US drone strike sometime in late 2009 or early January 2010. Mustafa Abu Yazid, al Qaeda's former leader of Afghanistan, who was killed in a later drone strike, mentioned his name while noting the deaths of other top al Qaeda leaders. Yazid said the suicide attack on a CIA base in Khost, Afghanistan, which killed seven CIA operatives and employees along with a Jordanian intelligence official, was designed to "avenge" the deaths of Abdullah Said, former al Qaeda operations chief Saleh al Somali, and former Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud.

The Bagram Four:Abu Abdallah al Shami [upper left]; Abu Nasir al Qahtan [upper right]; Abu Yahya al Libi [lower left]; Omar al Farouq [lower right].

Abu Abdullah al Shami

Abu Abdallah al Shami was a Syrian national who served as a senior military commander in eastern Afghanistan. He was one of four senior al Qaeda operatives who escaped from Bagram prison on July 10, 2005. Al Qaeda said that al Shami was killed in a US airstrike in Afghanistan sometime in July 2008.

Al Shami escaped from Bagram with top al Qaeda leaders Abu Yahya al Libi, Abu Nasir al Qahtani, and Omar Farouq. Of the four, only Abu Yahya remains free. Yahya is now considered to be al Qaeda's second in command, following the death of Atiyah al Libi in a US airstrike in Pakistan last fall.

British special forces killed Omar Farouq in Basrah, Iraq, in September 2006 after he tried to be reassigned to facilitate the flow of money, weapons, and fighters for al Qaeda in Iraq. Prior to his capture by Indonesian security forces in 2002, Farouq was considered to be al Qaeda's point man in Southeast Asia. In 1994, he helped set up the first al Qaeda training camp in Southeast Asia, in Mindanao in the Philippines. Five years later, in 1999, he took credit for bombing both a mosque and the Philippine ambassador's house in Jakarta.

US forces recaptured Abu Nasir al Qahtani in Khost province in November 2006. Like Shami, Qahtani was a senior al Qaeda military commander in eastern Afghanistan. After his escape from Bagram, Qahtani fled to North Waziristan to continue attacks against NATO and Afghan forces inside Afghanistan. He joined forces with al Qaeda operative Abu Wafa, who operates from the North Waziristan tribal agency in Pakistan. Wafa and Qahtani were active in the Afghan provinces of Khost, Paktia, and Paktika. Qahtani also released propaganda and training videos for terrorists operating in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Qahtani's brother, Abu Dejana al Qahtani, was also killed in eastern Afghanistan in May 2008.

Abdul Khabir al Turkistani and Soraqa al Kuwaiti

Little is known about Abdul Khabir al Turkistani and Soraqa al Kuwaiti. Al Turkistani is pictured in a room filled with explosives and bomb-making materials. Al Kuwaiti is a "deceased fighter who appeared in the fifth episode of As Sahab's video series 'Diaries of a Mujahid,'" according to the SITE Intelligence Group. As Sahab is al Qaeda's official media production outlet.