Kashmiri's great escape (reprise) {ilyas not dead?}

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/MG22Df04.html

ISLAMABAD - True to his reputation, the elusive military strategist of al-Qaeda in Pakistan, Commander Ilyas Kashmiri seems to have escaped death once again, if the latest media reports emanating from Pakistan are to be believed.

It was only last week that the CNN quoted Washington-based US intelligence officials as saying they were certain that Kashmiri was killed in a June 3 United States drone strike in the tribal region on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border belt. One United States intelligence official told CNN that he was "99% sure" that Kashmiri had died in the hit that leveled a compound in Gowakha village of the Wana area in South Waziristan.

The American intelligence officials did not specify why they believed Kashmiri was indeed dead. However, Pakistan's leading media group, Dawn, claimed on June 15 that Kashmiri was still


alive and active in the border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Despite well-publicized international media reports about his death almost six weeks ago, al-Qaeda has not yet issued a statement, as it does whenever a key leader of the terrorist organization is killed.

none of 'em stayed dead.