Another one gone

Salman Masood and Ismail Khan have an article in The New York Times about justice done, if brutally:

An American drone strike killed a top Pakistani militant commander in a northwestern tribal region, security officials said recently. The death of the commander, Maulvi Nazir (photo), was seen as a serious blow to Taliban fighters who attack United States and allied forces in neighboring Afghanistan.
The drone strike targeted Nazir’s vehicle in the Angoor Adda area in South Waziristan. Five other people were also killed, including one of his aides, officials said. “He has been killed; it is confirmed,” said a senior Pakistani intelligence officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “The vehicle he was traveling in was hit.” Nazir was heading from Bermal to Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, when the drone hit the vehicle he was in. In a separate drone strike, at least four people were killed in North Waziristan when a vehicle was targeted. Their identities were not immediately known.
Nazir, believed to be in his thirties, was based in the western part of the South Waziristan tribal region. He led the Ahmadzai Wazir tribe, and his loyalists regularly joined attacks on American forces across the porous border with Afghanistan. Unlike other Taliban factions, Nazir’s fighters did not attack Pakistani military or government sites, instead focusing on the war in Afghanistan. He was believed to have signed a peace pact with the Pakistani military.
Nazir was allied with Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a leading warlord in North Waziristan. The two commanders’ nonconfrontational posture toward the Pakistani military often led to their being labeled here as “good Taliban”.
In Washington, American officials said Nazir’s apparent death could hurt al-Qaeda’s sanctuary in the Pakistani tribal areas. “Nazir and his men were directly involved in planning and executing cross-border attacks against US and coalition forces in Afghanistan and in providing protection for al-Qaeda fighters in South Waziristan,” said one American official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the intelligence matter. “While it is too soon to tell, the death of Nazir, along with some of his deputies, could push his network into disarray, degrading al-Qaeda’s access to South Waziristan as a result.”
Asad Munir, a former Pakistani Army brigadier and the intelligence chief in Peshawar, said Nazir’s killing could lead to a spurt in violence. “A dangerous scenario for the Pakistani military would be the joining of hands of Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Maulvi Nazir supporters with Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan,” he said. Munir said that the area controlled by Nazir’s forces had been “relatively peaceful”, but that his death increased the chances of attacks on military targets.
Nazir had survived two earlier drone strikes. In November, he survived a suicide attack attributed to Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, the Pakistani Taliban, who conduct attacks inside Pakistan. After the suicide attack, he expelled rival Mehsud tribesmen from territory controlled by his fighters.
Nazir also opposed the presence of Uzbek fighters in Pakistan and, with the help of the Pakistani military, pushed Uzbeks out of his region several years ago.
Mohammad Din, a resident of Wana, said people were widely mourning Nazir’s killing there. “The main bazaar in Wana was closed for all routine activities,” Din said in a telephone interview. He said Nazir opposed polio vaccination in the region, but otherwise did not disrupt government projects and cooperated with the local administration.
Some analysts said that militants like Nazir could be troublesome for the Pakistani military with the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan in 2014.
Arif Rafiq, an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute, said: “Maulvi Nazir would probably have posed a problem for the Pakistani army if and when a political settlement is reached in Afghanistan in 2014. But in the interim, the killing of Nazir and his deputies likely hurts the Pakistani army’s efforts against the TTP in South Waziristan.” Rafiq, based in Washington, continued: “Nazir would probably have wanted to hold on to his local jihadist fief, making him a long-term threat for the Pakistani state.”
The suspicion that the Pakistani military gave a nod to Nazir’s killing could result in attacks on Pakistani troops in some areas in South Waziristan, analysts said.
Pakistani officials publicly denounce American drone strikes, but have privately acknowledged the effectiveness of the campaign.

Rico says he wonders (not really) why is it that these guys never look like a lot of fun, you know? (And it's funny that the Pakis decry our strikes in public, but cheer us on in private...)