Same as the moderates in Syria.
Via LWJ
The US launched the first drone strike in Pakistan this year in an attack targeting fighters loyal to a Taliban commander who is favored by Pakistan’s government as well as its military and intelligence establishment.
The CIA-operated, remotely piloted Predators or Reapers launched an airstrike on a compound in the village of Wacha Basti in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan earlier today, Dawn reported. Eight people, including an unidentified “high-value target,” are reported to have been killed in the strike.
The compound that was hit belongs “to an Uzbek commander of the Taliban’s Hafiz Gul Bahadar Group,” Dawn noted. Hafiz Gul Bahadar is the top Taliban commander for North Waziristan, and administers the jihadist haven of Datta Khel.
Some Pakistani news outlets are claiming that “outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Commander Hafiz Gul Bahadar” is among those killed. His death has not been confirmed. The reports are questionable as Bahadar is neither “outlawed” nor a leader in the TTP, or Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan. Bahadar, while allied with the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, operates independently of the group’s leadership.
In fact, the Hafiz Gul Bahadar Group and other jihadist factions such as the Haqqani Network are considered by the Pakistani establishment to be “good” Taliban, as these groups do not advocate attacking the Pakistani state, even while sheltering and supporting jihadist groups that wage war on the government. The so-called good Taliban also support and wage jihad in Afghanistan and India.