Skip to main content

Strike kills wife of Pakistani Taliban militant

One of the two wives of Baitullah Mehsud , Pakistan's most notorious Taliban militant, was killed in a suspected missile strike near the country's border with Afghanistan yesterday. This has led to official claims that the hunt for Mr Mehsud was progressing rapidly.

According to a Pakistani intelligence official, a missile strike after midnight, probably by a US drone in the south Waziristan region along the Afghan border, targeted the home of Ikramuddin Mehsud. He is a cleric and the father of Mr Mehsud's second wife, whom he married late last year.

"Baitullah Mehsud's wife, who was present at the house of her father, was among those killed," said the Pakistani official who requested anonymity. The US has placed a $5m (€3.5m, £3m) reward for information leading to the arrest or killing of Mr Mehsud.

In Pakistan, he is considered the most notorious Islamic militant and has been linked to a number of terrorist attacks including the December 2007 assassination of Benazir Bhutto , the former prime minister. The attack triggered speculation that Mr Mehsud might also have been targeted in the attack.

However, the intelligence official said yesterday: "The chances of Mehsud being targeted are very, very remote. The thought of a likely missile hit has meant that he keeps on changing places very frequently and tries to stay away from close family."

The intelligence official said the missile strike demonstrated that the US and Pakistan had made "significant inroads into Baitullah Mehsud's camp", adding "we now have much better intelligence than before on his movements".

Western diplomats agreed. "It is a sign of progress that Mehsud's wife was hit," said one.

In recent months, the Pakistani military has tightened its grip on Waziristan from where Mr Mehsud operates. Travellers in and out of the region are closely checked while the Pakistan air force has stepped up the number of reconnaissance flights over the area.

South Waziristan's serrated mountain ridges, dry river beds and gullies and shrubby vegetation provide perfect terrain for guerrilla warfare. Mr Mehsud has carefully built up a network of hardcore loyalists, thought to number between 10,000 and 15,000 fighters. In addition, he has overseen the creation of camps for the training of suicide bombers - a tactic that was rare among Pakistan-based militants until just over two years ago.

Earlier this summer, Qari Zainullah Mehsud, a tribal rival to Baitullah Mehsud. publicly challenged him, amid speculation that the break had been blessed by Pakistani authorities. Later, Qari Zainullah Mehsud was assassinated by one of his bodyguards, thought to have been supported by Baitullah Mehsud

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

India's swine flu death rate is increasing

Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in...

Suicide bombings kill 18 in Iraq

Thursday, August 13, 2009 MOSUL: At least 18 people, most of them members of the ancient Yazidi religious sect, were killed when two suicide bombers blew themselves up on Thursday in a packed cafe in northern Iraq, a local government official said.At least 31 people were also wounded after the bombers detonated suicide belts packed with explosives in the cafe in Kalaa town, in the district of Sanjar, local district chief Dakheel Qassem Hasoon, told a foreign news agency."Two suicide bombers entered the Cafe Barbaroz at 4:30 pm (1330 GMT) and blew themselves up, killing 18 civilians and wounding 31. Most of the victims were Yazidis," Hasoon said.Kalaa, northwest of the insurgent stronghold of Mosul in northern Nineveh province is predominantly populated by the minority Yazidi religious sect, as well as Arabs and Kurds.The attack is the deadliest since Monday, when 51 people were killed across Iraq, including 28 members of the tiny Shabak sect cut down when two truck bombs det...

US drones to target Taliban in Afghan war

Friday, July 31, 2009 WASHINGTON: The US military plans to use more drone aircraft to target Taliban militants in Afghanistan while focusing less on hunting down Al-Qaeda figures, report said on Thursday.Although defeating the Al-Qaeda terror network remains an overriding goal for Washington, officials now believe the best way to pursue that objective is to ensure stability in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan instead of Al-Qaeda manhunts, the paper said, citing US government and Defense Department officials.It was more important to prevent a slide towards violence and anarchy that could be exploited by Al-Qaeda, which used Afghanistan to stage its attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, the officials said."We might still be too focused on Bin Laden," an official said. "We should probably reassess our priorities."The shift in priorities for the drone fleet comes despite President Barack Obama's declaration that defeating and dismantling Al-Qaeda ...