ISLAMABAD/Quetta - The brother of a man who was killed alongside Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Akthar Mansour in a US drone strike in Pakistan is pressing murder and terrorism charges against US officials, police said yesterday.
The same day (Sunday) country’s interior ministry said DNA report has confirmed Mansour’s death in the drone attack in Balochistan while he was travelling by car near the town of Ahmad Wal on May 21.
The high profile killing is a major blow to the Taliban who have been waging a guerilla war in Afghanistan since being toppled from power in 2001.
US officials described the car’s driver as a “second male combatant” but according to Pakistani security officials he was a chauffeur named Mohammad Azam who worked for the Al Habib rental company based out of Quetta, the region’s main city.
His brother, Mohammad Qasim, said Azam was an innocent man who was providing for his four children and had been murdered.
“US officials whose name I do not know accepted responsibility in the media for this incident, so I want justice and request legal action against those responsible for it,” Qasim said in a police report dated May 25.
“My brother was innocent, he was very poor and he has left behind four small children. He was the lone breadwinner in the family,” the applicant added.
The former Taliban chief had entered Pakistan from Iran using a forged Pakistani identity with the name of Wali Muhammad when his car was hit by the US missile.
Azam’s family may be seeking a trial in absentia and a symbolic victory or they may attempt to push for compensation.
“My aim is to prove the innocence of my brother as he is being portrayed as a militant, but he was just a driver,” Qasim told AFP on the telephone. He said that so far the family had not sought any compensation for Azam’s death.
Local police and administration officials on Sunday confirmed charges had been filed, but declined to comment on what steps authorities would take to pursue the case, if any.
The identity of the US officials involved in the drone strike is unknown, and it was unclear if the charges will relate to those who ordered the attack or the US servicemen who carried it out.
Islamabad is in contact with Washington and other friendly countries to stop the US drone strikes amid US resolve not to end the unmanned attacks. After the first such strike in Balochistan, Pakistan fears the drone hits could be extended to other parts of the country.
A spokesman of interior ministry said in a statement on Sunday, “It has been confirmed that one of the men who was killed in the drone attack was Tehreek-e-Taliban Afghanistan former chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour.”
“The identification was confirmed after a DNA test which was matched with a close relative of Mullah Mansour who had come from Afghanistan to receive his body.”
The US and Afghan officials had confirmed Mansour’s death almost immediately, but Islamabad declined to do so before the DNA test results. However, Adviser to Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz had said the available evidence indicates that Mansour has died.
Mansour was appointed head of the Taliban in July 2015 and was succeeded on Wednesday by his deputy Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada.
The US has carried out hundreds of drone strikes in Pakistan, mainly in the border tribal regions with Afghanistan, and leaked documents show Islamabad had quietly consented despite publicly protesting.
But this was the first by the US in Balochistan province and Pakistan angrily denounced it as a violation of its sovereignty.
Islamabad says it hosts many of the Afghan Taliban’s top leadership to exert influence over them and bring them back to peace talks with Kabul.
Drone attacks have proven extremely controversial with the Pakistani public and rights groups. In 2013, Amnesty International said the US could be guilty of war crimes by carrying out extrajudicial killings.
A separate report on drone strikes in Yemen by Human Rights Watch accused the US of killing civilians and causing disproportionate civilian harm.