Tohir Abduhalilovich Yuldashev, cofounded the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, an Islamist organization active in Central Asia, with Juma Namangani in August 1998. According to the Defense Intelligence Agency he was a key leader opposing US forces during Operation Anaconda. The United Nations considers the IMU an Islamic terrorist organization. When Namangani, the IMU's military leader and cofounder, was killed in an airstrike in Afghanistanin 2001, Yuldashev took over the IMU's day-to-day operations as well. According to the BBC, Yuldashev learned al Qaeda was planning to use hijacked airliners to attack the United States on September 11, 2001, prior to the attacks. The BBC reported that Yuldashev then informed the Taliban Foreign Minister, Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, who sent an envoy to warn the USA of al Qaeda's attack plans prior to September 11, 2001. According to the BBC Yuldashev was told to initiate an advance warning to the USA of the attacks because he was concerned that an al Qaeda attack on the USA would trigger an American counter-attack, which would imperil the safe haven his group had been enjoying in Afghanistan. A video message from Tohir Yuldashev was reportedly distributed throughout the Uzbek areas of Central Asia in early 2007. In the video Tohir was reported to have said: After Baitullah Mehsud was reported to have been killed by missiles fired from an American Predator drone the Asia Times reported that Yuldashev had been Baitullah's ideological mentor, that Yuldashev had put 2,500 hardened fighters at his disposal, and that Baitullah lived with the Uzbek, who became his biggest ideological inspiration. On September 30, 2009, a man, who claimed to be Yuldashev's bodyguard, reported to the Pakistan newspaper The News International that Yuldashev was killed in a US Predator drone airstrike shortly after Mehsud's death. US and Pakistan officials afterwards confirmed Yuldashev was killed in an airstrike on August 27, 2009. Yuldashev reportedly lost a leg and arm in the drone missile strike on August 27, 2009 and was rushed to a private hospital in Zhob district of Balochistan where he died on October 1. His death was formally announced by the IMU on August 16, 2010.
