.
Pakistan’s military trying to verify reports that Taliban leader, who had been targeted by drone attacks, has been killed.
An elder in the Mamuzai area of Orakzai tribal agency said he attended Mehsud’s funeral on Thursday, the Associated Press reported. Speaking anonymously for fear of retaliation, the elder said Mehsud died at his in-laws’ home.
A Reuters report, quoting a Pakistani intelligence official, said the Taliban leader may have been fatally wounded following a 17 January drone attack on two vehicles in North Waziristan.
Mehsud’s fate has been the subject of intense speculation since a drone attack on 13 January on a remote madrasa on the border between South and North Waziristan.
A Taliban spokesman admitted that Mehsud had been present in the building moments earlier, but insisted he left before the American missile struck.
Days later Mehsud quelled rumours of his demise by phoning several Pakistani journalists in Peshawar. But he was apparently targeted a second time in a drone strike on two vehicles in North Waziristan on 17 January.
Unconfirmed reports since then have suggested Hakimullah was seriously injured in that strike and was shifted to his former stomping ground of Orakzai tribal agency for treatment.
(MSNBC) – The US has carried out drone attacks in the tribal belt over the past month. The salvo seems to have been triggered by the 30 December suicide bombing of a CIA base in southern Afghanistan that killed seven Americans spies including the base chief.
A posthumous video released later showed the bomber, a Jordanian doctor, sitting alongside Hakimullah Mehsud, indicating that the Pakistani Taliban played a leading role in the CIA’s greatest humiliation for decades.
8th Victim at FOB Chapman, Jordanian CIA asset …
New Taliban Leader In Pakistan Hakimullah Mehsud Warns Army Stop Following US Orders
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
