Latest : Mehsud Confirmed Dead
There are reports coming in that the Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud may be dead after a reported drone attack, a US official said on Thursday. If confirmed, the death of Mehsud would be a coup for Washington, which has placed a five-million-dollar bounty on his head and branded him “a key Al Qaeda facilitator” in Pakistan’s tribal belt.
“There is some reason to believe Mehsud may be dead but it cannot be confirmed at this time for certain,” the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told media.We suspect he was killed in the missile strike,’ Rehman Malik said on Friday. ‘We have some information, but we don’t have material evidence to confirm it.’
Meanwhile, Director General ISPR Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas cautioned that the reports of Mehsud’s death are still unconfirmed. ‘We are receiving reports and probing,’ he said.
ABC News cited a senior US official as saying there was a 95 per cent chance that Mehsud was among those killed in the missile strike. US officials have visual and other indicators it was Mehsud and Pakistanis are now trying to collect physical evidence to be certain, ABC reported. The official would not comment on the circumstances surrounding Mehsud’s possible death.
ABC News Report : Click Here For Video
We earlier posted that Mehsud’s wife had been killed in an attack from an unmanned US aircraft, which regularly target Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in Pakistan. A senior Pakistani security official had told media that the target of the strike was the warlord Mehsud. US television quoted unnamed US officials saying there was no physical evidence but there were “indicators” that Mehsud had been killed.The officials said they hoped to secure DNA tests, US television reported. Pakistan on Sunday offered a 615,000-dollar reward for information leading to the capture, dead or alive, of Mehsud.
