Pakistani militant's death hits home

ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan -- On Jan. 14 at 8:12 p.m., Khushal Khan's wife got a call on her cellphone. "Your son has been martyred," said the voice at the other end of the line. The man hung up.

The end for Khan's youngest son, Aslam Awan, came when a drone piloted remotely from the United States fired a missile at a house along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.

Awan was one of four people killed, U.S. officials said, describing him as an "external operations planner" for al-Qaida. British authorities say he was a member of a militant cell in northern England who had fought in Afghanistan.

The Jan. 10 strike in the militant stronghold of North Waziristan was a victory for the CIA-led drone program at a time when relations between Washington and Islamabad are strained. It was one of the first drone attacks after a hiatus of six weeks following a friendly fire incident in which NATO forces killed 24 Pakistani border troops, nearly leading to a severing of ties with Islamabad.

The drone attacks generate anti-American sentiment inside Pakistan, but have been credited with significantly weakening al-Qaida in one of its global hubs.

For his family, the call came as a final curt word about the fate of a son they had heard little from in over a year.

Awan grew up in the northwestern town of Abbottabad, a few kilometers away from the house where Osama bin Laden was slain. His father worked in a bank in Britain in the '70s and then in Abbottabad until he retired a few years ago.

It seems doubtful Awan had any contact with bin Laden. But his background here reinforces a striking association between this wealthy Pakistani army town and al-Qaida militants, which began before bin Laden was killed in May last year by a team of American commandos.-- AP