An American drone strike in Pakistan has killed two al-Qaida-linked Muslim converts from Britain. It appears to be the result of a growing phenomenon of Western Muslims going to fight in Pakistani terrorist organizations.
The British Muslim converts, Caucasians going by their noms de guerre Abu Bakr and Mansoor Ahmed, were killed in Data Khel in the al-Qaida stronghold North Waziristan province, British media reports indicate. A local official in the town of Data Khel claimed that the pair's given names Stephen and Dearsmith. The strike occurred in the same region where another British Muslim and terrorist leader, Abdul Jabbar, was killed by an October 2010 airstrike.
Americans have also joined the Pakistani jihad. Al-Qaida's English-language voice in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Adam Gadahn, was a Caucasian Muslim convert from California. In March 2010, Pakistani officials reporting capturing Gadahn, but it turned out to be Abu Yahya Mujahideen al-Adam, allegedly a Pennsylvania native linked to al-Qaida's Afghan combat operations.
Waziristan is also said to the location of a small village of German converts, battling alongside local terrorist organizations as "some of the insurgents' most dedicated fighters."