Baitullah Mehsud

[The 801]

Baitullah Mehsud
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Baitullah Mehsud (or Masood) is a leading tribal militia leader in Waziristan, who, while he is sympathetic to both the Taliban and Al Qaeda, is primarily tribally oriented.[1][2]

Role within the Waziri tribe

The Waziris are a Pashtun tribe whose home spans the Pakistan/Afghanistan border. The Mahsud are one of the four sub-tribes of the Waziri.

Mehsud entered into a ceasefire with Pakistani authorities on February 8, 2005.[3][4][5] Mehsud was offered $20 million USD for his cooperation in the ceasefire.[6] Some Taliban leaders had claimed they needed the money because they owed al Qaeda money, and couldn't disengage from hostilities unless the debt was repaid. Mehsud however told Pakistani authorities that they should use his share of the pay-out to "compensate families who had suffered during the military operation".

Preliminary investigations concerning the September 2007 bombings in Rawalpindi note that Mehsud is the primary suspect behind the attacks.[7] A December 18, 2005 report stated that Baitullah Mehsud, Abdullah Mehsud and Yaldeshev were the subject of a man-hunt.[8] Authorities said they believed that the militants were short of ammunition and would be captured soon.

A March 10, 2006 report asserts that Mehsud collects a kind of tax in Waziristan.[9] The report quotes an official in the Northwest Frontier Constabulary:

Baitullah's lashkar (army) is very organised. He has divided it into various units and assigned particular tasks to each unit. One of the units been tasked to kill people who are pro-government and pro-US and support the US occupation of Afghanistan. The last person to be killed was Malik Arsallah Khan, chief of the Khuniakhel Wazir tribe, who was killed on February 22 in Wana (in South Waziristan).

The Ariana Afghanistan WorldWide Broadcasting reported on June 23, 2006 that the Waziri tribes allied with the Taliban were negotiating another ceasefire with Pakistani forces.[10] The article said Baitullah Mehsud "has been chosen to continue to be the head of militants from Mehsud tribe." His growing influence in South Waziristan have led some to label him as "South Waziristan's Unofficial Amir".[11]

In February 2008, Mehsud announced that he had agreed to another ceasefire with the government of Pakistan. The Pakistani military has officially claimed that military operations against Mehsud are continuing. The The New York Times, however, reports that anonymous high-level officials in the Pakistani government confirmed the deal.[12]

Benazir Bhutto assassination

On December 28, 2007 the Pakistan government claimed that it had strong evidence regarding Baitullah Mehsud as the man behind the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on December 27, 2007.[13] The Pakistani government released a transcript it asserted was from a conversation between Baitullah Mehsud and Maulvi Sahib (literally "Mr. Cleric").[14][15][16] According to the transcript Maulvi Sahib claimed credit for the attack, Baitullah Mehsud asked who carried it out, and was told, "There were Saeed, the second was Badarwala Bilal and Ikramullah was also there."

The translation released from Agence France Presse differed slightly from the translation from the Associated Press.[14][15][16] According to the transcripts Baitullah Mehsud says he is at, "Anwar Shah's house", in Makeen or Makin. The Agence France Presse transcript identifies Makeen as a town in South Waziristan. Subsequently, both Agence France Presse and NDTV released an official denial by Mehsud's spokesman in which he said that Mehsud had no involvement in the attack, that the transcript was "a drama", that it would have been "impossible" for militants to penetrate the security cordon around Bhutto, and that her death was a "tragedy" which had left Mehsud "shocked".[17] Mehsud's spokesman was quoted as saying: "I strongly deny it. Tribal people have their own customs. We don't strike women."[18]

In an address to the nation on January 2, 2008, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said that he believed Maulana Fazlullah and Baitullah Mehsud were prime suspects in the assassination of Bhutto.

In its January 18, 2008 edition, The Washington Post reported that the CIA has concluded that Mehsud was behind the Bhutto assassination. "Offering the most definitive public assessment by a U.S. intelligence official, [Michael V.] Hayden said Bhutto was killed by fighters allied with Mehsud, a tribal leader in northwestern Pakistan, with support from al-Qaeda's terrorist network."[19]

Relationship with Abdullah Mehsud

Abdullah Mehsud a Taliban leader who was among the first captives set free from Guantanamo is sometimes described as Baitullah's brother.[20] Other sources merely assert that they were clansmen, or associates.[21][22][23] Islam Online reports that Baitullah suspected that Abdullah was a double agent.[24]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baitullah_Mehsud


Lot of great wikipedia links. Hopefully this guy will get me over Mugniyeh getting the head rest treatment.

[The 801]

Who is Baitullah Mehsud? Part 2

Tribal militant leader Baitullah Mehsud has shown a disturbing interest in Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the controversial father of Pakistan's nuclear arms program.

By Anthony Bruno

"Allah on 480 occasions in the Holy Koran extols Muslims to wage jihad. We only fulfill God's orders. Only jihad can bring peace to the world...We will continue our struggle until foreign troops are thrown out. Then we will attack them in the US and Britain until they either accept Islam or agree to pay jizya (a tax in Islam for non-Muslims living in an Islamic state)." These are the words of Baitullah Mehsud, militant leader of the Mehsud tribe of the Pashtun ethnic group, from a BBC interview in January 2007.


Tribal militant leader Baitullah Mehsud has shown a disturbing interest in Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the controversial father of Pakistan's nuclear arms program, who in 2004 admitted to selling nuclear technology to Iran, Libya, and North Korea on the black market. Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan reported that when Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan in October of this year, Baitullah instructed Al Qaeda militants in Karachi to kill her for "three major offenses against Islamists." First, she supported the Pakistani military attack on Lal Masjid (the Red Mosque) in Islamabad on July 10, 2007—Lal Masjid was considered a hotbed of Islamist radicalism; one hundred and sixty-four Pakistani special-forces commandos stormed the mosque and madrassah, killing at least 20 and injuring over 100. Second, Bhutto has made it clear that if she takes power in Pakistan, she will allow American forces to search for Osama bin Laden inside Pakistan's borders. Third, she has said that if elected, she would allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to question A. Q. Khan.



Why does Baitullah care about Khan? Is he trying to protect a valuable asset in the international terrorist community? Or does he fear that Khan will implicate others in his nuclear dealings, possibly including warlords like Baitullah or their Islamist allies within the Pakistani security and intelligence services?

Though he claims to be motivated by his deep devotion to Islam, Baitullah doesn't shun a profit when there's one to be made. The Taliban paid him $70,000 to hunt down diplomats from countries that published cartoons depicting Allah. On February 8, 2005, Baitullah and four other militant tribal leaders signed a peace agreement with the Pakistani government. They drove a hard bargain, agreeing to sign only after being paid $540,000. As part of the agreement, Baitullah promised not to support the Taliban or Al Qaeda, but at the peace negotiations he openly swore his allegiance to the Taliban's Mullah Omar. In demanding higher payments, the other leaders said that they needed more money because they were in debt to Al Qaeda and felt it was a matter of honor to pay off that debt. The United States has given Pakistan over $10 billion in aid since Sept. 11, 2001. Did the money that was paid to these militant leaders come from the American purse, and did it ultimately thereby find its way to America's sworn enemies?


http://www.crimelibrary.com/graphics/photos/news/original/war_room/Baitullah_Mehsud/Omar-Mullah200.jpg
Taliban's Mullah Omar


With Pakistan still in the tight grip of emergency rule, American officials worry that General Musharraf will pull troops out of the tribal regions to maintain law and order in Pakistan's cities. Baitullah has been a major problem for the military in his territories. There's no telling what he might do if the military presence in North and South Waziristan is reduced or eliminated.


http://www.crimelibrary.com/graphics/photos/news/original/war_room/Baitullah_Mehsud/Abdullah-Mehsud200.jpg
Abdullah Mehsud

Until 2005, Baitullah lived in the shadow of his daring and charismatic brother, Abdullah Mehsud, who, with his long black hair, was considered a terrorist rock star. Abdullah fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan against the Northern Alliance and in 1996 lost a leg when he stepped on a land mine. He was taken captive by warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum who turned him over to American forces. Abdullah Mehsud was sent to Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba and held for two years, insisting the whole time that he was just an innocent tribesman. He was released in 2004 for reasons which remain unclear and returned to Waziristan. Soon after his return, he orchestrated the kidnapping of two Chinese engineers working on a dam in his region, proclaiming that Beijing was guilty of killing Muslims. He also ordered an attack on Pakistan's Interior Minister in which 31 people perished. In July 2007 he died in a clash with Pakistani military forces as they raided his residence.

http://www.crimelibrary.com/graphics/photos/news/original/war_room/Baitullah_Mehsud/Abdul-Rashid-Dostum200.jpg
Abdul Rashid Dostum

By contrast, Baitullah keeps a much lower profile. He refuses to be photographed and keeps his face covered in public. He reaches out to his people through FM radio broadcasts. He crosses the border into Afghanistan at will to fight against the "crusaders." Left unchecked, it's uncertain where and with whom he will strike next.


http://www.crimelibrary.com/graphics/photos/news/original/war_room/Baitullah_Mehsud/Baitullah-Mehsud200.jpg
Baitullah Mehsud

Baitullah made his intentions clear this past January when he said, "As far as jihad is concerned, we will continue to wage it. We will do what is in the interest of Islam." Speaking of the growing threat of Baitullah's militia, Pakistani military analyst, Hasan-Askari Rizvi, told The New York Times, "The army has never faced such a serious challenge in the tribal areas."


http://www.crimelibrary.com/news/original/1107/2001_war_room_baitullah_mehsud_1.html

[The 801]

Pakistani Taliban unites under Baitullah Mehsud
By Bill Roggio
December 15, 2007 10:28 AM

http://www.longwarjournal.org/maps/swat-pakistan-battlemap-1-12062007.jpg

Battlemap of Swat operations; blue arrow arrows are the Pakistani Army's advance to date. Click map to view.

As President Pervez Musharraf lifts the state of emergency, the Taliban in the tribal areas and the Northwest Frontier Province have united under a single banner, and a single leader. On Friday, a shura, or council, of 40 senior Taliban leaders established the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan -- the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan -- and appointed powerful South Waziristan Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud its leader.

The shura was made up of Taliban representatives from the seven tribal agencies of North and South Waziristan, Khyber, Orakazi, Bajaur, Mohmand, and Kurram, as well as the settled districts of Swat, Bannu, Tank, Lakki Marwat, Dera Ismail Khan, Kohistan, Buner, and the Malakand division.

The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan demanded the Pakistani military halt operations in Taliban territory and release of their members. The Taliban also stated it would continue the fight against Coalition forces in Afghanistan.

"The meeting participants have demanded an immediate end of the military operation being carried out in Swat, and given a 10-day ultimatum to the government to pullout troops from the area," the Nation reported. The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan also demanded "the closure of the military checkposts in North and South Waziristan and release of all Taliban activists including former Lal Masjid Khateeb Maulana Abul Aziz."

“Our main aim is to target the US allies in Afghanistan but the government of Pakistan’s ill-strategy has made us to launch a defensive Jihad in Pakistan,” spokesman Maulvi Omar stated. “The government of Pakistan would be paid in the same coin now,” Mehsud said.

The consolidation of the disparate "local Taliban" movement is a logical step in the Taliban's insurgency campaign in northwestern Pakistan. The Pakistani Taliban, while allied with al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban, has operated as local groups. The creation of a unified Taliban movement in Pakistan will allow them to better coordinate both military and political operations inside Pakistan, as well as with the Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda.

The meteoric rise of Mehsud stems from his ability to organize and command large numbers of fighters, fend off the Pakistani military in South Waziristan, take the fight to neighboring agencies and districts, and organize a nationwide suicide bombing campaign. The government cut a deal with Mehsud in 2006 to end the fighting in South Waziristan. Last year it was estimated Mehsud commanded an army of 30,000 fighters. He has been directly implicated in a series of suicide attacks on military and government officials throughout the course of 2007.

Mehsud leaps over some able and influential Taliban leaders in North and South Waziristan, including Sadiq Noor, Mullah Nazir, and Noor Islam. It is unclear if Faqir Mohammed of Bajaur and the outlawed Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM - the Movement for the Implementation of Mohammad's Sharia Law) were represented at the meeting, but it is likely. A representative of Maulana Fazlullah's Swat branch of the TNSM was in attendance. Abu Kasha, a key link between al Qaeda's Shura Majlis and the Taliban, likely holds a senior position in the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan.

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2007/12/pakistani_taliban_un.php

[Casey]

Mehsud turns down talks offer

Iqbal Choudhry

ISLAMABAD: Local Taliban have refused to talk to the new coalition government for ending year-old operation along Pak-Afghan border, sources privy to the local Taliban told The Post on Thursday.

Sources disclosed that Baitullah Mehsud has plainly refused to hold talks with the new coalition government.

"The new government is part of previous one. We cannot talk to them. If somebody wants to hold talks with us he should give us the explanation of our deaths during the so-called war against terror," said Mehsud according to sources.

Asif Ali Zardari, co-chairman PPP, is learnt to have established contacts with the local Taliban in order to bring them to talks for a durable peace in the region.

Zardari before contacts with the Taliban discussed ways and means with his close associates to make a possible room for establishing contacts with the local Taliban in order to bring peace in the country.

Zardari acquired the help of Moulana Fazalur Rehman, ANP chief and some close aides of Taliban to start the peace talks.

But before the process could start Baitullah Mehsud has refused to sit with the new government. However, response from Mullah Mansoor Dadullah is awaited in this regard.

As all local Taliban inter-connected, it is expected that the other tribes of the region would also refuse to talk to the new government.

http://thepost.com.pk:80/MainNews.aspx?bdtl_id=10124&fb_id=2&catid=14

[The 801]

The Taliban will talk, but no 'sugar-coating'
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - While responding positively to the Pakistani government's offer of peace talks, the Pakistani Taliban have demanded the release of several key personalities in return for the Taliban freeing about 250 security personnel they are holding.

The Pakistani Taliban's list includes Maulana Abdul Aziz, a prayer leader of the radical Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad, Mullah Obaidullah, a former minister of defense under Taliban rule in Afghanistan and Muslim Dost, a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner now in Inter-Services Intelligence detention.

In return, the Pakistani Taliban have offered the safe return of 250 security personnel from their custody.

On Saturday, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani said the newly elected government would seek peace with the Taliban and offered to hold talks with militants who laid down their weapons.

The Taliban's demand is the first challenge to the new cabinet to make an urgent choice between internal peace on the one side and resentment from Islamabad's "war on terror" allies on the other.

"This demand was given from Baitullah Mehsud's camp as soon as Islamabad proposed dialogue," a source affiliated with the Shura of Mujahideen in the North Waziristan tribal area told Asia Times Online. Mehsud is a leading Pakistani Taliban figure.

Gillani has vowed to eradicate militancy from the country through dialogue. He has also taken the bold step of moving to abolish discriminatory British colonial tribal laws. The Pashtun sub-nationalist Awami National Party, which forms part of a coalition government in North-West Frontier Province, has confirmed it has already started negotiations with the Taliban for peace in the tribal areas. The Taliban have welcomed the change of government in Pakistan.

And the Taliban have a potent bargaining chip in the form of their 250 captives, who include members of the Khasadar tribal force, the Frontier Corps and the Pakistani army seized during clashes between the Taliban and the Pakistani security forces over the past months.

All of the captives are in the custody of Mehsud's men. The hardline al-Qaeda-linked Mehsud, who is wanted in connection with the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto and other suicide attacks in Pakistan, is believed to no longer be in the tribal areas; his only possible hideout could be in Afghanistan, from where he is thought to be sending messages through his local contacts and tribal intermediaries.

A no-win situation?
The government in Islamabad is now in the unenviable position of having to decide between giving in to the Pakistani Taliban's demands and releasing some of its most-wanted detainees, or submitting to inevitable war. Neither option is appealing.

The second-most important ally in the ruling coalition, the Pakistan Muslim League of Nawaz Sharif, fared well in February's parliamentary elections by opposing the policies of President Pervez Musharraf during his years as a military ruler.

Specifically, the party promised the nation it would stop highly contentious military operations in the tribal areas and launch an investigation into the Lal Masjid operation in which the mosque was stormed last year to clear it of radicals. The party also said it would reconstruct the Jamia Hafsa, a women's seminary adjacent to Lal Masjid which was demolished during the operation, and have all prisoners taken during the incident released.

"Yes, we are fully committed to abide by our promises. We will get the investigations into the Lal Masjid operation done, get their prisoners released and reconstruct the women's seminary," said the newly elected member of the National Assembly (and now the minister for youth affairs) Khawaja Saad Rafiq in a television talk show last week.

The problem is, this stance is at odds with that of the leading coalition partner, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP). Although the PPP desperately wants peace in the country, it will not be at the expense of the "war on terror".

On Monday, the government announced the appointment of Pakistan's ambassador to Washington, retired Major General Mahmood Ali Durrani, as national security advisor to the prime minister. This indicates the PPP does not have any intention of pulling back from its "war on terror" commitments or from Washington's agenda in the region.

Durrani took immediate retirement after the death in a plane crash in 1988 of military dictator General Zia ul-Haq and went to the United States, where he worked for various policy think-tanks. He is considered to be very close to Washington's decision-making community. Due to this rapport, he was appointed envoy to Washington in June 2006 by the Musharraf government. The family of Zia has accused Durrani as being a conspirator in the mysterious plane crash in which Zia died.

One of the most compelling reasons for the PPP not to comply with the demands of the militants - even at the cost of a war with them - is financial. Special secretary at the Ministry of Finance Ashfaq Hassan Khan recently revealed that the US did not release the promised funds for Pakistan's expenditures in the "war on terror" last year and as a result Pakistan was forced to take loans from local banks worth US$5.6 billion.

Should Pakistan now bow to the militants' demands it will surely be seen in Washington as reneging on its "war on terror" commitments, which could mean further money being withheld - as much as $1.25 billion a quarter.

"The age of sugar-coated dialogue is over. If the government means business, it has to make a bargain, otherwise, to us, nothing is changed," a contact belonging to the Pakistani Taliban camp in the tribal areas told Asia Times Online.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JD02Df02.html

[The 801]

Confrontation ends | Wana-Tank road opened to traffic

The Post Monitoring/Online

PESHAWAR: A very important main Wana-Tank road opened after 80 days for traffic after ending a confrontation between the security forces and the extremists in the South Waziristan Agency.

According to media report, thousands of migrant tribal families would also be able to go back to their homes in the conflict-torn areas. The return of the migrants of Mehsud could not be started as some roads in the territory were not open.

The government decided to open the main road only to facilitate the people of the affected areas and it could not approach the local Taliban, according to a foreign radio service. Few months ago the security forces launched a military operation against the extremists of the Mehsud tribes in Laddha sub division and blocked all the roads connecting other sub-divisions. More than one lakh families of the Mehsud tribes migrated to the district Tank, Bannu, Dera Ismail Khan and other parts of the country due to heavy bombardment and the economic sanctions. After three or four months, the government has decided to open the (Wana-Tank) road for every kind of traffic. South Waziristan Political Agent Fazl-e-Rabbi also informed the affectees that the government opened the road between the Wana and Tank. The Jandola Makeen road was still closed while Tank to Wana and Wana to Makeen roads were now opened, an official told a foreign radio service.

Senator Saleh Shah Mahmood of the South Waziristan told the British radio that the clear decision to open roads in the conflict-stricken areas could not be taken by the government. The Tank-Wana and the Wana-Makeen roads were opened for only three days, he said.

Quoting Assistant Political Officer Shaista Khan, the senator said that the final decision regarding the opening or not opening of the roads would be taken after three days. On the other hands, the secret talks were going on between the government and the local Taliban, according to local people.

If the government-Taliban talks were remain successful then all roads in the tribal areas might be opened, the BBC reported.

(And oh, by the way....801)

The government had also released Rais Khan, a close associate of Baitullah Mehsud who heads the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, the BBC quoted the locals as saying. Rais Khan was arrested in Dera Ismail Khan some six months ago by the security forces.


http://thepost.com.pk/MainNewsT.aspx?bdtl_id=10222&fb_id=2&catid=14

[The 801]

Reliability of Pak, Afghan soldiers questioned

* US report claims Mehsud reorganising Taliban with Pakistani intel agency help

By Khalid Hasan

Washington: US forces deployed along the Afghan border with Pakistan only fire across the line when fired at, claims a report published by the Washington Post on Friday, while adding that Afghan and Pakistani soldiers are unreliable, the villagers ambivalent and there are even disputes as to where the true border lies.

The report, which quotes local American military officials, asserts that Pakistanis such as Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan are reorganising the Taliban with help from agents in Pakistan's intelligence service. A greater frustration, he and other US troops said, is that they cannot trust their Pakistani counterparts. “The Pakistan military is corrupt and lets people come through”, Captain Chris Hammonds, commander of Attack Company, 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment told the Post correspondent. Pakistani forces reportedly told insurgents the location of his observation post, and when US troops in a firefight call the Pakistani military for help, he said, "they never answer the phone".

The report quotes US officials who charge that over the past 18 months, Taliban fighters have exploited peace deals by Pakistan's government to create an unprecedented haven in the region. From there, insurgents have escalated attacks in Pakistan and in eastern Afghanistan, leading the United States last year to double its troop presence along more than 600 miles of the frontier. However, recent high-level talks among the three countries have called for more intelligence-sharing and co-ordinated operations along the border.

Last Saturday, the first of six new border co-ordination centres -- with officers from the three nations -- opened in Torkham at the Khyber Pass, a "giant step" forward, according to Major General David Rodriguez, the top US commander in eastern Afghanistan.

US commanders say they need at least 50 percent more US troops and more reconstruction money. At current levels, they said, it will take at least five years to quell insurgent attacks, which increased by nearly 40 percent in eastern Afghanistan last year, including a 22 percent rise in attacks along the border.

Collaboration is said to be growing between Taliban commanders in Afghanistan and Mehsud, the CIA has said, while also alleging that Mehsud is responsible for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Captain Hammonds said Afghan army units cannot guard the border because they rotate every three to six months and lack enough local knowledge. "The key to securing the border is to remove the Afghan National Army (ANA) completely," he adds.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C04%5C05%5Cstory_5-4-2008_pg7_17

[The 801]

Non-bailable arrest warrant of Baitullah Mehsud, 3 others sent to Secretary FATA

PESHAWAR: The non-bailable arrest warrant of Baitullah Mehsud and his three comrades wanted for their involvement in the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto have been sent to Secretary FATA.

The Law Department of the Punjab government has sent the non-bailable arrest warrant to Secretary FATA.

According to details, a special court of anti terrorism court in Rawalpindi after arrest of two persons for their alleged involvement in the murder of Benazir Bhutto, issued non-bailable arrest warrant to Baitullah Mehsud and his three associates on the other day.

The non-bailable arrest warrant also sent to the political agent of North Waziristan and South Waziristan.

http://www.onlinenews.com.pk/details.php?id=126552

[Casey]

Another warrant issued against Baitullah
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SHAHID RAO

RAWALPINDI - Anti Terrorism Court (ATC) Rawalpindi No.1 Tuesday issued another non-bailable arrest warrant of Baitullah Mehsud, a senior Taliban commander based in South Waziristan, for his alleged involvement in suicide attack in the precincts of Police Station R A Bazaar on September 4, 2007 in which 12 people lost their lives and many others sustained injuries.

ATC special judge Chaudhry Habibur Rehman directed R A Bazaar police to produce him in the court on April 21 the next hearing date of the case after arresting Baitullah Mehsud.

In the court, the police requested the learned judge for issuing arrest warrants of the accused stating that during the investigations two arrested men linked Baitullah with the suicide attack that killed some 12 people near GHQ.
They further stated that they wanted to arrest the suspect to complete their investigations in this regard.

It is pertinent to mention here that the same court had already declared Baitullah a proclaimed offender after issuing his non-bailable arrest warrants in PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto’s assassination near Liaquat Bagh on December 27, 2007.

The two other arrested accused Muhammad Rafaqat and Hasnain Gul alias Ali were produced in the court and their judicial remand in the R A Bazaar case and the suicide attack on a police picket near Army House registered with Civil Lines Police on October 30 last year, was extended till April 21.

The investigation team sought more time to complete their investigations in these cases and to complete the challan and the charge sheet. They said more arrests were expected and more information was to be gathered.

In both cases the accused are charged with terrorism, murder, attempted murder, criminal conspiracy, mischief committed after preparation made for causing death or hurt, mischief causing damage and possessing explosive materials.

According to the confessional statement of Muhammad Rafaqat, he along with his maternal cousin Hasnain facilitated Muhammad Usman who carried out suicide attack on September 4 last year near GHQ.

He said that Hasnain provided him suicide vest that was obtained from Qari Ismail of Madrassa Haqania Akorra Khattak. According to Rafaqat the Qari was working for Baitullah of tribal area.

He had further confessed that he knew the suicide attacker who exploded himself near a police picket on a road leading to Army House. That attack was also carried out at the behest of Qari Ismail.

The accused had disclosed that they tried to attack many other places in Rawalpindi but could not succeed to do so.

The two cousins were arrested from Westridge police area with explosive materials and were earlier alleged for their involvement in the murder of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on December 27, 2007 in suicide attack outside Liaquat Bagh.

http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/Apr-2008/2/index12.php

[The 801]

Terrorist chief stops fighting
Article from: Herald Sun

April 26, 2008 12:00am

THE man believed to have masterminded the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and a top Taliban leader in Pakistan has told his followers to stop fighting.

The Washington Post reports Baitullah Mehsud has ordered the truce while he discusses a deal with the Pakistani Government to end months of violence.

Mr Mehsud, who has links with terrorist group al-Qaida, leads Taliban fighters in Pakistan's troubled northwest.

The talks are the sharpest divergence Pakistan has yet taken from its ally the US's tough policy on fighting terrorism, which was also backed by President Pervez Musharraf.

US officials expressed concern talks with perhaps Pakistan's most notorious Islamist commander would not solve Pakistan's political problems, the Post reported.

Mr Mehsud last year agreed to a truce, but that collapsed.

His followers said Pakistani troops had already started to leave the restive tribal areas of North and South Waziristan as part of the accord still being negotiated.

"We have reached a final stage of an agreement with the Pakistani authorities for a peace deal," Maulvi Omar, spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban ,told the Post.

But Maj-Gen Athar Abbas, chief spokesman for the Pakistani military, denied troops had moved out of the region.

The US has cautiously greeted Pakistan's Taliban negotiationsm which provoked some White House scepticism.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23599836-5012750,00.html

[Casey]

Mehsud suspends peace talks with government

* TTP spokesman says decision made after govt refusal to withdraw army from Tribal Areas

* Ceasefire remains intact

By Hasbanullah Khan

KHAR: Baitullah Mehsud, chief of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), has ‘temporarily’ suspended talks with the government over the army’s refusal to withdraw from the Tribal Areas, his spokesman announced on Monday.

The ceasefire announced by Mehsud last week would continue, spokesman Maulvi Umar added. The ceasefire was declared after officials announced that a peace agreement had been drafted that included the withdrawal of government soldiers from some border areas, as well as the exchange of captives on both sides and a pledge not to launch attacks, AFP reported.

“TTP chief Baitullah Mehsud ordered the cancellation of negotiations with the government through a tribal jirga,” Umar told reporters by telephone. He said that Mehsud had taken the decision after learning of the continued presence of troops in the Tribal Areas.

“Some hidden hands are not sincere in (a) deal with the Taliban and there are elements that do not want peace,” Umar quoted Mehsud. He said the negotiating team had been ‘disappointed’ by the government’s inaction. He said the Taliban would resume dialogue if their demands were accepted, adding that the Taliban required the government to show that it was committed to the peace agreement.

He warned that the Taliban would “take revenge” if the government launched any military operation, Reuters reported. Separately, AP quoted Awami National Party’s Muhammad Adeel as saying that the Taliban’s demand of a “symbolic” gesture had caused the breakdown in talks.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C04%5C29%5Cstory_29-4-2008_pg1_6

[The 801]

http://media.economist.com/images/20080503/CAS920.gif

Pakistan's tribal areas
Dangerous deals

May 1st 2008 | PESHAWAR
From The Economist print edition
Worth the paper they're not written on?

AS THE snows melt in Afghanistan, the fighting season beckons; across the border in Pakistan, however, it is the season for making peace deals. After winning an election in February the coalition government, led by the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), announced plans to talk to militants. Talks have indeed taken place, to the chagrin of the American administration. But the civilians had little to do with them.

The PPP and its main coalition partner, Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League, have been far too busy for duty in the “war on terror”. They have been bickering instead over their unfulfilled pledge to reinstate judges sacked by President Pervez Musharraf. On the frontier, Mr Musharraf, army chief until November 2007, still calls the shots. It was he who signed a 15-point peace plan cobbled together by a military-intelligence agency and the governor of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) before the election, and approved by the new civilian government last month.

The army and the militants, both badly bruised from vicious fighting, have observed an unofficial ceasefire for more than a month while officials attempt to string a series of “secret” deals together across the lawless tribal agencies. They are close to signing a deal with tribal elders acting for Baitullah Mehsud, the overall leader of the assorted Pakistani Taliban outfits. The CIA has named Mr Mehsud as the prime suspect in the murder last December of Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister. It accuses him of training suicide-bombers. On April 25th he distributed fliers ordering supporters to end hostilities or be “hung upside down in public”.

The deal stipulates an end to militant activity, the expulsion of foreign fighters, an exchange of prisoners and the gradual withdrawal of the army from South Waziristan. But similar deals have foundered in the past. In North Waziristan, for example, a 2006 agreement led to a tripling of cross-border infiltration. Officials say the new pact ties in more tribes. In South Waziristan the methods for dealing with “violations” have been tightened.

But the flaws are obvious: the draft is silent about militants' cross-border forays into Afghanistan; and it is not clear how ineffective tribal elders can wield influence over well-armed militants. Western diplomats say that infiltration has doubled over the past month compared with the same time last year, and is a particular problem from Bajaur.

According to a senior Western diplomat, there is a lingering attachment between elements of Pakistan's establishment and Mr Mehsud and other leading Islamist extremists. The militants holding Tariq Azizuddin, Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan, who was kidnapped in February in the Khyber Pass, say that in return for freeing him they want the release of three suspects accused of murdering Benazir Bhutto and a former Taliban defence minister, Mullah Obaidullah.

The secular party that governs the North-West Frontier Province, the Awami National Party (ANP), is trying to pacify its own area. It has released a senior pro-Taliban Pakistani militant, Sufi Mohammad, whose banned faction has pledged to renounce violence. Khalid Aziz, a retired senior bureaucrat, has helped draw up a plan that includes boosting the province's police force by 14,000 officers and rehabilitating 12,000 former militants. But he says NWFP's success is greatly dependent on the tribal areas. The ANP's Aftab Sherpao, a former interior minister who has survived two suicide-attacks, says that no plan can work unless it is linked to agreements in Afghanistan. To some observers, including the Americans, it all has an air of inevitable failure.

http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11293794

[The 801]

Hidden hands in Pakistan

Pakistan's new government has started its peace strategy -- but neither the Taliban nor Washington is committed to it, writes Graham Usher in Mardan


Last week a car packed with explosives detonated outside a police station in Mardan, a rustic town in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP). A police officer and two civilians were killed and homes, stalls, shops and streets were blitzed with shrapnel. Tehrik-i-Taliban, or the Taliban Movement of Pakistan (PT), claimed the attack: revenge, said spokesman Maulvi Umar, for a Taliban fighter killed by the police in Mardan some weeks before.

Superficially, there was nothing unusual about the hit. Two hundred and fifty people have been killed in attacks in Pakistan in 2008, many of them bearing the signature of the PT. In Mardan alone 10 police stations have been rocketed. Yet the car bomb sent a shiver throughout the NWFP. It was the first act of violence in nearly a month. And it was the first since the formation of a new civilian government committed to dialogue with Pakistan's Islamic militants rather than repression.

The peace policy has the support of the majority of Pakistanis and seemed to be working. Not only had Islamist-inspired violence slumped: the perpetrators appeared to be on board.

On 23 April the government released from jail Sufi Mohamed, a radical cleric who in the 1990s championed a violent movement for the enforcement of Sharia law in the NWFP's Swat and Malakand regions and, in 2001, led 10,000 ill- armed men to resist the US-led invasion of Afghanistan. Today he says he recognises the government's writ and will use only peaceful means to propagate Sharia. The government also hopes he will tame his son-in-law Mullah Fazlullah, who raised an insurgency in Swat last year.

More significantly, the same day saw news that the government, backed by the army, was finalising a peace accord with the Mehsud tribe from the South Waziristan agency on the Afghan border. This means talking to Baitullah Mehsud, PT "emir" and the man President Pervez Musharraf and the CIA say was behind the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto last year. Mehsud has denied the charge.

Under an evolving deal Mehsud has agreed to end attacks on the Pakistan army, allow economic development in South Waziristan and other tribal agencies and expel from them all foreign militants, especially Arab and Uzbek fighters with ties to Al-Qaeda. In return, the army will no longer collectively punish the Mehsuds, free 200 prisoners and start a phased withdrawal from Mehsud lands in South Waziristan.

On 24 April, Baitullah Mehsud ordered the PT to end "all hostile activities" in the tribal areas and restive NWFP districts like Swat. "Obeying this order is compulsory and violators would be hanged upside down and punished publicly," he decreed. The Mardan operation was an exception, explained Maulvi Umar. It may again turn out to be the rule.

On 28 April, Mehsud called off talks with the government. The army had reneged on its pledge to re-deploy forces in the tribal areas, he said. Maulvi Umar spoke darkly of "hidden hands" in Pakistan's intelligence agencies that were acting under the influence of "foreign forces". It's no secret what these forces are. "We are concerned about" the peace accord, said US government spokeswoman Dana Perino on 25 April. "What we encourage [the new Pakistani government] to do is to continue the fight against the terrorists and to not disrupt any security or military operations that are ongoing in order to prevent a safe haven for terrorists there".

The Bush administration is particularly concerned that the Taliban may use peace on the Pakistan front to marshal forces for a major spring offensive against NATO in Afghanistan. There are grounds for these fears, says Khalid Aziz, a former government agent in the tribal areas who now heads a research centre in Peshawar. "You cannot deploy the army along 800 miles of the Afghan-Pakistan border. There will be gaps, which the militants will use to infiltrate. And that will lead to an increase in violence in Afghanistan".

The violence is already being felt. On 27 April, Taliban gunmen breached 18 security rings to machine-gun a military parade in Kabul commemorating the 16th anniversary of the fall of the last Communist government in Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai escaped with his life; three Afghans and three Taliban did not. The point was "to show the world that we are able to attack anywhere we want to," said an Afghan Taliban spokesman.

US commanders in Afghanistan believe the hit was planned by Jalaluddin Haqqani, a Taliban commander whose sanctuary is Waziristan. They want the freedom to go after him. So far the White House has rebuffed the request, unwilling to enter into a confrontation with the new Pakistan government.

But with thousands reportedly massing in the tribal areas to join the fight in Afghanistan few have any illusions that American restraint will last for long. Nor over what would be the consequence if the US took unilateral military action in Pakistan. Says Aziz: "a military strike would not only destroy the peace process and everything else -- it would strain the US-Pakistan alliance to breaking point."

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2008/895/in1.htm

[The 801]

Jirga makes first direct contact with Baitullah
Militant commander says intelligence agencies against deal

Wednesday May 07, 2008 (0826 PST)

PESHAWAR: Amid reports of terrorist attacks on personnel of the law-enforcement agencies in tribal as well as settled areas, a Jirga tasked to broker a deal with militants held its first-ever face-to-face meeting with local Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud on Tuesday.

Sources privy to the Jirga, negotiating between the government and the tribal militants, told this scribe that armed militants of Baitullah Mehsud took the Jirga members to his hideout in six pick-up trucks somewhere in North Waziristan where they held a detailed meeting.

"Baitullah personally received us in his stronghold and assured us of his full cooperation in the restoration of peace in the tribal areas as well as the settled districts of the province, where the militants linked to his Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan are operating," said a Jirga member, but wished anonymity.

He said the Jirga members informed Baitullah Mehsud about the government`s commitment to fulfil its pledge for a durable peace in the region and better relations with the people of the tribal areas.

The sources said Baitullah told the Jirga members that some people in Pakistan`s intelligence agencies at the behest of the US did not want peace deal between the government and tribal militants.

"Pakistan is our own country which our forefathers achieved after rendering great sacrifices, how can we think of destroying it? But there are some people in the intelligence agencies and the government set-up who want the turmoil to continue in the tribal areas along with Afghanistan so that their vested interests could be served better," said the Jirga member, who is a prominent tribal cleric having strong ties with the militants, while quoting Baitullah Mehsud as telling the Jirga.

The two-week deadlock in talks between the government and the militants ended on Monday after the government took an initiative to approach a tribal Jirga for brokering a peace deal with the Baitullah Mehsud-led fighters.

Also, the sources said Baitullah once again repeated his previous demands to the Jirga and said he was ready to sign a peace deal with the government but once the Pakistan Army troops were pulled out of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, the gun-manufacturing town of Darra Adam Khel and the Swat district of the NWFP.

Besides, Baitullah demanded removal of all roadside checkpoints manned by the Pakistan Army and paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC), release of all the militants and their relatives detained on charges of militancy, compensation to the people who suffered losses during the military operations and also that the government`s law-enforcement agencies would not lay hand on their people anywhere in the country.

"I promise, I and my people will remain peaceful and will never attack the security forces and government installations anywhere in the country but once the government accepts my genuine demands," explained the source while quoting the Taliban`s most powerful commander as assuring the Jirga members in the talks.

He said the Jirga, after holding talks with Baitullah and his key commander, said they would now meet senior government functionaries to inform them about the outcome of the negotiations.

It may be recalled that the Jirga members had refused negotiations between the two parties after the government all of a sudden backed out of its commitment to withdraw troops from the tribal areas and the Swat district.

End.

http://www.paktribune.com/news/index.shtml?200185

[The 801]

US wants Baitullah arrested, talks abandoned

By Anwar Iqbal


WASHINGTON, May 21: Both the US administration and Congress have increased pressure on Pakistan to abandon talks with militants and demonstrate sincerity to the war on terror by capturing Baitullah Mehsud.

At a special hearing on Fata at the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, Republican and Democratic lawmakers put their differences aside in urging the administration to use its influence and persuade Pakistan to call off the talks.

The US media and think tanks are already opposing the talks and questioning Washington’s wisdom in providing military and economic assistance to a government which is making peace overtures to America’s enemies.

The US administration’s decision to go public with its objections to the peace talks comes days after Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani assured US President George W. Bush in Egypt that his government would not negotiate with militants unless they laid down arms.

The situation in Fata is also expected to be high on her agenda when US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice meets British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Wednesday evening.

Britain supports Pakistan’s talks with tribal militants.

In the Senate, Senator John Kerry, a former Democratic presidential candidate, initiated the debate on Pakistan’s peace talks with the tribal militants when he recalled that during his meetings with Pakistan’s new leaders in February, he realised they had a very different understanding of the nature of the terrorist threat in Fata than the United States.

“In two days of meetings, Osama bin Laden’s name was hardly ever mentioned. Instead, the Pakistanis are focused on confronting a growing domestic Pashtun insurgency led by Baitullah Mehsud,” he said.

Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, who appeared as a key witness before the Senate committee, endorsed the lawmakers’ concerns. “We are not the advocates of negotiations with terrorists,” he said. “We have real reservations about negotiated agreements” with extremists.

According to him, one of the metrics to measure Pakistan’s success in the war on terror would be the reduction in cross-border attacks inside Afghanistan.

“Another would be if you saw the government operating effectively against some of these militant extremists – like, for example, bringing Baitullah Mehsud, the head of this extremist group in south Waziristan, capturing him and bringing him to justice, which is what should happen to him.”

Mr Negroponte told the committee that Washington had repeatedly cautioned Islamabad about the talks despite a pledge from the Gilani government not to give “free space” to the extremists operating in the tribal areas.

The United States claims that similar peace talks in 2006 allowed militants to build a safe haven inside Fata which they now use for planning attacks across the world.

The United States, Mr Negroponte said, was concerned there were “elements” in the Pakistan government pushing for a negotiated settlement with the Taliban.“We hope that they proceed cautiously and not accept an outcome that will give extremist elements the ability to use the Fata with impunity to carry out attacks on Pakistan, on Afghanistan or the United States or the rest of the world,” he said. “There is a lot at stake here and we have made that point repeatedly.”

The US, he said, has “some scepticism” about Pakistan’s ability to enforce a peace deal with the militants.

Mr Negroponte said that the US National Security Council was going to “look at the border region in its entirety” as part of the counter-terrorism drive.

“The aim, of course, is to try and find ways to deal most effectively and support our friends in dealing as effectively as possible with this terrorist threat,” he told reporters, without elaborating.

http://www.dawn.com/2008/05/22/top4.htm

[The 801]

Media war is the real war: Mehsud

* TTP preparing propaganda offensive with greater outreach

By Iqbal Khattak

KOTKAI: The Taliban are preparing to launch a propaganda offensive with greater (global) outreach by arming some of its members with requisite skills to upload videos on websites such as YouTube.

“The real war is the media war,” Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Baitullah Mehsud told Daily Times. “It is our desire to learn also how one should fight the media war.”

Mehsud paved the way for a media counter-offensive on Friday by inviting more than 30 journalists from national and international media organisations to North and South Waziristan.

This came on the heels of the army airlifting around 20 journalists to Speenkay Raghzai on May 18 to showcase the forces’ forward positions in areas from which militants were ousted during ‘Operation Zalzala’ in January.

It became apparent during the second visit that the militants had returned. Residents said they had done so on May 20 – a day after the army readjusted its positions to facilitate the return of displaced Mehsud families.

Mehsud sought to win over reporters by terming the murder of Express TV’s Bajaur correspondent ‘unforgivable’. He assured journalists that his organisation would “hang the killers” of Ibrahim if they were identified.

“The Taliban have not been very advanced as far as the media war is concerned. But we are making efforts to catch up with the latest methods, and we will soon be available on YouTube,” a non-Pashtun and non-combatant member of the Taliban’s media cell told Daily Times, his face covered up to evade the identifying gaze of invited lenses.

Access to the latest technology does not appear to be a problem for the Taliban; their media cell employed the latest digital video cameras and laptops to record every moment of the ‘biggest Taliban media show’.

Senior BBC Urdu reporter Haroon Rashid commented that the media show put on by the Taliban underscored the “completer control of the militants” over Waziristan.

The Taliban media cell has already been releasing video CDs showing horrific images, apparently with different aims. One such video, screened during an army media briefing on May 18, shows a boy as young as 10 firing shots at the head of a blindfolded man and beheading another.

“Such images leave a deep impact on viewers. It is part of Taliban psychological warfare to break down opponents psychologically,” a retired army expert on psy-ops warfare told Daily Times in Peshawar.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C05%5C27%5Cstory_27-5-2008_pg1_9

This from the guy that won't even let his picture be taken -801

[The 801]

Taliban commander Qari Hussain survived military operation in Waziristan
By Bill RoggioMay 25, 2008 10:18 PM


A senior Taliban commander thought to have been killed in a Pakistani military operation in South Waziristan in January has turned up alive. Qari Hussain spoke to the media on May 23, just after Baitullah Mehsud said the Taliban would continue to attack NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Hussain mocked the reports of his death at a press conference held at a government school building in South Waziristan. “I am alive, don’t you see me?” Hussain said.

Qari Hussain is a senior lieutenant to Baitullah, the overall commander of the Pakistani Taliban. Hussain is a senior Taliban commander in the Mehsud tribe in South Waziristan. He runs suicide training camps that indoctrinate young boys between 9 and 12 years old. He is also described as a leading ideologue for the Taliban. "His extremist views are popular among Arabs, Uzbeks, and Afghan fighters," The Christian Science Monitor reported.

Baitullah and Hussain had a falling out in June 2007 after Hussain launched a series of violent attacks on police in the tribal areas. Hussain's followers conducted beheadings and assassinations of tribal leaders in South Waziristan and the settled district of Tank. He was behind the attack on the home of the political agent of Khyber Agency, which resulted in the death of the agent's six family members and seven guests.

The incident resulted in clashes between the two Taliban leaders as Hussain failed to obtain permission to conduct his campaign of terror. Baitullah retaliated by capturing 17 of Hussain's followers and threatened to kill them.

While the incident prompted some Pakistani analysts to predict the fracturing and demise of the Taliban, the rift was smoothed over during the summer after the Taliban went on the offensive against the Pakistani military, government, and civilians. Hussain and Baitullah attended a jirga, or tribal council, that was formed to help free more than 300 Pakistani troops captured by the Taliban in South Waziristan.

Hussain's home in Kotkai was destroyed by the Pakistani military in January. The Pakistani military launched an operation in South Waziristan on Jan. 24 after Taliban forces commanded by Baitullah overran two military outposts and conducted attacks against other forts and military convoys in the tribal agency. The military intercepted Taliban communications that indicated Hussain was killed in the assault.

The Pakistani military reported Hussain may have been killed back in January, then reiterated that claim after taking reporters to one of Hussain's suicide camps in Spinkai in South Waziristan on May 18.

"It was like a factory that had been recruiting nine to 12-year-old boys, and turning them into suicide bombers," said Major General Tariq Khan, the commander of Pakistan's 14 Division, which led the operation in South Waziristan.

"The computers, other equipment and literature seized from the place ... give graphic details of the training process in this so-called ‘nursery,’" Dawn reported. "There are videos of young boys carrying out executions, a classroom where 10- to 12-year olds are sitting in formations, with white band of Quranic verses wrapped around their forehead, and there are training videos to show how improvised explosive devices are made and detonated."

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/05/taliban_commander_qa.php

With friends like these, the taliban are in for a beautiful future.
Not.

[The 801]

Pakistani Taliban commander spends $45 million yearly
By Bill RoggioMay 31, 2008 1:21 AM


Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban and the commander in South Waziristan, spends more money on yearly operations than al Qaeda spent year prior to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to the governor of the Northwest Frontier Province.

"He is spending between Rs 2.5 - 3 billion [about $45 million] yearly on procuring weapons, equipment, vehicles, treating wounded militants and keeping families of killed militants fed," Governor Owais Ahmed Ghan told Daily Times. Ghan said the money could not have come from donations alone; the opium trade in Afghanistan is filling Baitullah's coffers.

Most of the money is spent on "the means of communication — vehicles, fuel and equipment — and then on treatment of wounded fighters, and lastly on keeping the killed comrades’ families fed," Zulfiqar Mehsud, an aide to Baitullah, told Daily Times last March. "We have to change vehicles after we use them for a year. Every vehicle at our disposal must be in top condition because we have very rough and tough roads and hilly areas and cannot afford to keep vehicles that are not as fit as our job requires." (spoken like a true motorhead, or dope dealer -801)

Baitullah is thought to operate a force of more than 20,000 fighters, some of whom are professionally trained. His forces beat back Pakistani Army assaults in 2007 and 2008, and overran two military outposts in South Waziristan. His fighters also captured an entire Pakistani Army company without firing a shot.

The operating costs for Baitullah's forces in South Waziristan exceed that of al Qaeda, according to numbers compiled by the 9-11 Commission and terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna. The 9-11 Commission report says al Qaeda central spent an estimated $30 million for yearly operations, which included salaries for members, the operation of training camps, weapons, vehicles, and the development of training manuals.

Al Qaeda also spent an estimated $10 million–$20 million per year to receive a safe haven from the Taliban in Afghanistan. "Bin Laden also may have used money to create alliances with other terrorist organizations, although it is unlikely that al Qaeda was funding an overall jihad program," the 9-11 Commission Report states. "Rather, Bin Laden selectively provided startup funds to new groups or money for specific terrorist operations."

Gunaratna's numbers are similar. He estimates al Qaeda spent $36 million a year on operations in Afghanistan, and another $14 million for global operations, putting the yearly budget at about $50 million. Gunaratna’s estimate of al Qaeda's funding of the Taliban and allied terrorist movements is much higher than the 9-11 Commission Report's estimate.

"To buy loyalty, Al Qaeda also funded individuals in various Islamist groups, including the Taliban, to the tune of $100 million," Gunaratna said, citing US intelligence sources.

Baitullah is but one Taliban commander

While Baitullah is arguably the most important and capable Taliban leader in Pakistan's tribal areas and in the Northwest Frontier Province, he is not the only one. The $45 million cited does not extend to leaders such as Faqir Mohammed in Bajaur, Mullah Fazlullah in Swat, the Haqqanis in North Waziristan, Mangal Bagh Afridi in Khyber, Omar Khalid in Mohmand, and others in the region.

And Baitullah may not be receiving the largest funding in Pakistan, a senior US military intelligence source familiar with the Taliban in Pakistan told The Long War Journal. Bajaur's Faqir Mohammed may be receiving more money than Baitullah, the source said.

Faqir has close links to al Qaeda (he is believed to have sheltered Ayman al Zawahiri several times) and Bajaur serves as an al Qaeda command and control center for operations into eastern Afghanistan. His safe houses and training camps have been the target of several US airstrikes since 2006.


http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/05/pakistani_taliban_co_1.php

[The 801]

Report: Strike target's Baitullah Mehsud's hideout in Pakistan
By Bill RoggioJune 15, 2008 2:26 PM


The US military may have targeted Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud Several in an airstrike on June 14, according to several reports from Pakistan.

Baitullah's hideout in the town of Makeen in South Waziristan was hit with three missiles, according to Geo TV and the Daily Times. Only one person was confirmed killed in the strike. Baitullah is not believed to have been killed.

Baitullah, the leader of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, sheltered in a safe house in Makeen run by Anwar Shah at the end of December 2008 after claiming credit for former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's assassination.

On week ago, 18 Taliban fighters from Makeen were killed during a major engagement in Paktika province, Afghanistan, as they attempted to cross the border.

US strikes inside Pakistan

If confirmed, the Makeen stake would be the fifth such targeted attack inside Pakistan this year. On June 10, the US military attacked Taliban fighters as they crossed the border, killing eight and sparking outrage from the Pakistani government. Two senior al Qaeda operatives were killed in the prior attacks.

Abu Laith al Libi was killed in a US strike inside the North Waziristan tribal agency in Pakistan in late January. Al Libi was the leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and served as a chief spokesman for al Qaeda. Laith also commanded al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan.

Abu Sulayman Jazairi, a senior Algerian operative for al Qaeda’s central organization, along with 13 associates, was killed in an airstrike against a Taliban and al Qaeda safe house in the town of Damadola in Pakistan’s Bajaur tribal agency on May 14. Jazairi is described as a senior trainer, an explosives expert, and an operational commander tasked with planning attacks on the West.

Jazairi is thought to have succeeded Abu Ubaidah al Masri, a senior al Qaeda operative who served as the former operations chief in Kunar, Afghanistan, before becoming al Qaeda operations chief for global strikes. Ubaidah took over for Abd al Hadi al Iraqi, a senior deputy for Osama bin Laden who was personally chosen by bin Laden to monitor al Qaeda operations inside Iraq. Hadi was captured by US forces as he attempted to enter Iraq in late 2006. Ubaidah is believed to have died from complications from an illness.

On March 12, the US military fired guided missiles from Afghanistan into a compound run by Siraj Haqqani, the wanted Taliban leader behind numerous attacks in Afghanistan. The attack is believed to have killed three senior Haqqani network commanders and "many" Chechen fighters.

On March 16, US forces struck at the fortified compound owned by Noorullah Wazir, a Pakistani tribal elder who lived in the village of Dhook Pir Bagh some five kilometers from Wana, the headquarters of South Waziristan. Another nearby house, where Uzbek and Arab fighters recently stayed, was also destroyed in a separate round of missile fire.

Prior to the January strike that killed al Libi, the last US attack inside Pakistan occurred in Mir Ali in North Waziristan on December 28, the day after Benazir Bhutto's assassination. The US military targeted the home of Sheikh Essa, an Egyptian cleric responsible for pushing the Taliban to overthrow the Pakistani government. Essa was said to have been wounded in the attack.

In August 2007, when Pakistani forces hit two Taliban and al Qaeda bases in the village of Daygan, North Waziristan. Camps and bases in Damadola, Danda Saidgai, Chingai, Zamazola, again in Danda Saidgai, and Mami Rogha were hit over the course of 2006 and 2007.

These strikes have done little to disrupt the growth of al Qaeda and the Taliban in northwestern Pakistan. The Taliban and al Qaeda maintain 29 terror camps in North and South Waziristan alone.

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/06/report_strike_target.php

Referanced above:

GEO Pakistan
US. Missile strike kills one in S Waziristan
Updated at: 1303 PST, Sunday, June 15, 2008
US. Missile strike kills one in S Waziristan WANA: One person was killed as unmanned US drones fired three guided missiles at a house in the Makeen area of South Waziristan on Saturday, a private television channel reported.

According to Express News, the drones fired three missiles at a house in a bid to target the hideout of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Baitullah Mehsud. Locals have recovered one dead body from the debris of the house while more casualties are feared, it said.

Inter-Services Public Relations spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas said he could not confirm the attack or the casualties. Abbas told Daily Times that neither the political agent concerned nor locals could confirm the incident, as there was no military presence in the area.

A local security official, asking not to be named, told AFP that “extremists tried to hit the drone with a rocket-propelled grenade”. “The place from where the grenade was fired was then struck by a missile fired by the unmanned drone killing one suspected militant,” the official said.

After the missile attack, the US drones made flights over the Shawal area of North Waziristan, where locals also fired at the planes.

Several missile strikes in the tribal belt this year have been attributed to the US-led coalition based in Afghanistan, killing a number of people.

The incident in Makeen comes just days after an airstrike by US-led coalition forces that had killed 11 Pakistani troops. US officials have said the coalition was legitimately targeting militants but has offered to conduct a joint investigation with Pakistan.

http://www.geo.tv/6-15-2008/19301.htm

Never knew that drones carried 3 missiles. - 801

[Casey]

Baitullah threatens suicide attack on Malik, Qaim

KARACHI: Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud has threatened the government of suicide attacks on Adviser to the Prime Minister Rehman Malik and Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah, intelligence agencies sources said on Sunday.

His threat also included attacks on Army installations, PPP ministers and personnel of the law-enforcement agencies as well as the Intelligence Bureau and the Crime Investigation Department in Karachi and other parts of the country, the sources said.

They said Mehsud had issued the threat after the start of the operation in the Khyber Agency.The sources added that Mehsud had sent four to five suicide bombers to Karachi from Waziristan while snipers were also sent to the provincial metropolis to attack the ministers and intelligence agencies personnel.

Meanwhile, a high-level meeting was held here to discuss the security situation, sources said. Senior officials of intelligence agencies and the Police Department attended the meeting and finalised a comprehensive security plan.

Intelligence Bureau Director General and outgoing provincial police officer Muhammad Shoaib Suddle also attended the meeting. The sources said security had been beefed up in the city as well as in the province, especially in the Red Zone areas and heavy patrolling had been ordered, including checking of vehicles and sensitive places.


After receiving the threat, the sensitive units of the Sindh Police were ordered to conduct raids, the sources said. They said the CID and the Special Branch were asked to upgrade their network.

End.

http://www.paktribune.com/news/index.shtml?202552

[Casey]

Pakistan: Baitullah Mehsud, LJ gang up in Karachi


KARACHI: Baitullah Mehsud, the defunct Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ) and other outlawed jihadi organizations have prepared a joint strategy for Karachi, Daily Times learnt on Wednesday. An intelligence agency official told Daily Times that Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Chief Baitullah Mehsud has established contact with different splinter groups in Karachi. The newly established group is currently under Raheemullah alias Naeem alias Ali Hassan, son of Wilayat Khan, of the Chakkarzai caste. He lives on Street 3, Shehzad Cinema, Qasba Colony, Orangi Town. Raheemullah, 35, usually wears a Sindhi cap and was affiliated with the LJ and Harkatul Mujahideen.

It has recently been revealed that Raheemullah led various terrorist activities in Karachi, including those behind the assassination of Shia scholar and MMA Sindh leader Allama Hassan Turabi. Raheemullah dropped the suicide bomber, Karim, to the spot chosen for the attack. He was also involved in the suicide blast at Nishtar Park, which claimed several lives.

The sources said that the law enforcement agencies have arrested several members his group, Sultan Mehmood, Mufti Zakir and others. However, other members of the group are still at large and are now planning to sabotage the network of the group cracking down on terrorist groups. Daily Times learnt that Raheemullah established contact with Baitullah Mehsud and took on many Karachi-based activists, including Qari Abid Mehsud, Khalid Dare Walla, Mufti Ilyas, Colonel Tufaan, Qari Hussain Mehsud, Abdul Wahad Mehsud of Kunwari Colony in Metroville and Faizullah Mehsud, a resident of Sohrab Goth, as his associates. Qari Hussain Mehsud recently joined the group to provide suicide bombers and Abdul Wahab Mehsud is now running a training camp at Badar, a remote area in Afghanistan.

faraz khan
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C09%5C04%5Cstory_4-9-2008_pg12_9

[The 801]

Pak Taliban suicide bombers raring to attack in every nook and corner of Pak, Afghan
September 12th, 2008 - 1:48 pm ICT by ANI -

Taliban

Bajaur Agency ( Pakistan ), Sept 12 (ANI): Well-trained suicide bombers are waiting to carry out suicide attacks in every nook and corner of Pakistan , and some of them have even crossed the Pak-Afghan border to attack the US-led coalition forces there, said a top Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) commander Maulvi Umar in a videotaped interview to be telecast on a Pakistan-based TV channel.

The interview was conducted at an undisclosed location somewhere in the Bajaur Agency in FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas).

In the interview lasting more than one than one hour, Umar said that the TTP had no role in the assassination of former Pakistan premier Benazir Bhutto, and that TTP chief Baitullah Mehsud had talked to Benazir and conveyed to her that his terrorist organization was not targeting her. Baitullah Mehsud told me that he had talked to the late PPP chairperson and assured her that there was no conflict between them and he would not take any action against her, Umar said.

Umar, who is known to be second to Mehsud, also said in the interview that young boys voluntarily joined the TTP with the ambition of carrying out suicide attacks in the name of Allah. We dont force anybody to do suicide attacks. They automatically come to us and request a chance to sacrifice their lives for Allah. We teach our children. They study the Koran, understand it and memorize it, and when they become totally ready, then they are recruited for jihad, the Washington Times quoted him as saying.

Apart from Mehsud, Umar is the only TTP leader authorized to speak with the media. He is also the top Taliban commander in Bajaur Agency. About him, Nadeem Kiani, a spokesman for the Pakistani Embassy in Washington , said: Umar is definitely on the radar screen. If we could get intelligence on where this person is, we would certainly take him out.

Umar said the TTP, like their Afghan brethren, share the ideology of Osama bin Laden and both groups are waging war against US and NATO troops in Afghanistan . Afghan Taliban are only active in Afghanistan , but we are active in both Afghanistan and Pakistan . Here in Pakistan , we have adapted a defensive strategy. However, in Afghanistan we have resorted to aggression against the NATO forces, he said.

Replying to a question as to why the TTP was attacking innocent civilians in suicide attacks, an angry looking Umar shot back: [The] Taliban is going through a tough time, so it has resorted to these attacks. The suicide bombers always target security forces or government officials, but sometimes innocent people also fall victim to it. We always regret that and seek pardon, but it happens in the war. It sometimes becomes difficult to differentiate between the enemy and innocent people in the crowd. (ANI)


http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/india-news/pak-taliban-suicide-bombers-raring-to-attack-in-every-nook-and-corner-of-pak-afghan_10095004.html

[Casey]

Lashkar-i-Jhangvi network busted

Saturday, September 27, 2008
Three suicide bombers killed in Karachi

By Salis bin Perwaiz

KARACHI: The Intelligence Bureau (IB), the Crime Investigation Department (CID), the SSP Lyari Town and personnel of Sindh Police busted the network of Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, Sindh, after a fierce gun-battle in Baldia Town on Friday, killing three suicide bombers and recovering huge quantity of arms, explosive material, splinters, hand grenades and thousands of bullets. The incident took place after the police arrested LJ Sindh Ameer Rahimullah alias Ali Hasan after a shootout.

Provincial Police Officer, Sindh, Sultan Salahuddin Babar Khattak, said that Friday’s encounter was a joint operation by the local police and intelligence personnel, who had recovered huge quantity of C-4 explosives and acid used for igniting fires.

PPO Sindh Khattak maintained that after the arrest of Rahimullah, also known as Naeem, the Ameer of LJ, the network of terrorist organisation in Sindh had been busted.

The probe team is interrogating Ameer Naeem regarding the terrorists operations in the city in the past. About the involvement of the LJ in the October 18 blast in Karachi at the caravan of assassinated PPP Chairperson Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, he said that it was premature to say anything at this stage.

Intelligence sources said that on late Thursday night, the Intelligence Bureau received information about the presence of LJ Sindh Ameer Rahimullah in Kalapul area, who was talking on his cell phone in Waziristan with his co-leaders.

The IB Sindh personnel started tracing Rahimullah and got his location at Kala Pul bridge. The IB personnel conducted a raid and after resistance, arrested Rahimullah and took him to their headquarters for interrogation. Moreover, the IB informed the CID departmental head regarding the arrest of the LJ Sindh Ameer by their personnel.

Later, a CID team, including SSP Mohammed Fayyaz Khan and SSP Raja Omer Khataab, reached the IB headquarters and started interrogating Rahimullah.

During the course of investigation, Rahimullah disclosed that his other aides, including three suicide bombers, were present in Baldia No-9, Sector-F, and were loaded with huge quantity of weapons and explosive material.

A Joint Interrogation Team (JIT) of the IB and the CID personnel conducted a raid with police contingents and initially cordoned off the area. After taking positions, they went to a nearby mosque and made an announcement to warn the residents not to come out of their houses. Soon after the announcement, the terrorists opened fire, which the police retaliated. A brief encounter took place. During the encounter, the terrorists also threw nine to 10 hand grenades due to which a Police Armored Personnel Carrier (APC) was damaged and two Constables, Wajid Ali and Mehmood, received minor injuries.
The police killed two terrorists and were trying to come near the house when an explosion took place and the house was reduced to rubble. All three were killed.

The police started removing the debris and recovered four bodies. It also recovered large quantity of hand grenades, explosive material used for making suicide jackets, splinters, pelts, two Kalashnikovs, four TT pistols and thousands of bullets and literature of Lashkar-i-Jhangvi. The killed were shifted to a hospital where they were identified as Noor Muhammad alias Sultan Omer, Siddiq Mehsud, Zubair Bengali and Shaukat Afridi.

A neighbour of the killed militants Saleem said that he was a resident of Baldia Town and was a labourer by profession but he did not know that the persons residing next to his house were terrorists. He added that some time back, he became suspicious about the persons due to their late night movements.

He further stated that on Friday morning, the police had cordoned off the area and also taken positions on the roof of his house and killed the terrorists in a fierce encounter.

SSP Mohammed Fayyaz Khan and Raja Omer Khataab said that all the three -- Sultan Omer, Siddiq Mehsud and Zubair Bengali -- were suicide bombers of Lashkar-i-Jhangvi. Sultan Omer was the brother of Sultan Saifullah (suicide bomber of Nishter Park), Siddiq Mehsud was a relative of Baitullah Mehsud while the third person Zubair Bengali was the relative of Abdul Karim Bengali, the suicide bomber who had killed Allama Hassan Turabi. Regarding deceased Shaukat Afridi, whose body was recovered from the rubble, they said that Shaukat Afridi was a trader of oil and a resident of Defence Society. On May 8, 2008, Shaukat Afridi, son of Haji Mohammed Sakhi, resident of Defense Phase-VII, was kidnapped by the militants from Clifton Block 2. They later called his family and demanded a ransom of Rs 500 million for his release but the family told the kidnappers that they could not arrange that much amount.

After negotiations, the matter was settled at Rs 50 million but the criminals refused to release him and again asked for the same amount.

Deceased Shaukat was a trader of oil and supplied oil to Nato forces through his tankers. The officers disclosed that two militants were killed in the firing of the police. The third militant Waseem Bengali received a bullet wound, who after killing Shaukat Afridi blasted the house with remote control bomb made with RDX.

The officers disclosed that LJ Sindh Ameer Rahimullah, during investigations, disclosed that a few months ago he, along with the killed accomplices who were all trained in Waziristan for suicide bombings, came to Karachi to achieve their targets, assigned to them by their leader Qari Zafar. He further disclosed that they were funded by Abid Mehsud, a commander of Baitullah Mehsud group, for the purchase of arms, explosives and vehicles.

Rahimullah also disclosed that in Allama Hasan Turbai case, he had dropped suicide bomber Abdul Karim at NIPA Chowrangi in a red color car and in the Nishter Park case, in which the top leadership of the Sunni Tehrik was killed, he had trained and dropped Sultan Saifullah near the Nishter Park.

Regarding the attack on SSP Raja Omer Khataab, LJ Ameer Ali Hasan disclosed that he had personally manufactured the bomb and fixed it in a bicycle and later went to the Saddar area and parked it near a petrol pump. It was further disclosed that Waseem Bengali was assigned to kill SSP Khurram Waris and before Eid they were ready to make a suicide attempt on SSP Waris. They had also on their hit list two Shia Ulema and the task was assigned to deceased Saddiq Mehsud and Sultan Omer.

They were planning target killings of SSP Mohammed Fayyaz Khan, SSP Farooq Awan and other officers who had conducted operations against their group. These directives were issued to them by their leader Qari Zafar.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=17525

[Casey]

Mehsud seriously ill, falls into coma



The Post Monitoring

PESHAWAR: Baitullah Mehsud, the head of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), is seriously ill, leading to convergence of the top TTP leadership in the Makeen area of South Waziristan Agency, reported Times of India quoting sources.

Sources said Baitullah Mehsud, who is suffering from diabetes, was seriously ill, causing a lot of concern among TTP leaders.

“He seems to have gone into a coma,” the newspaper quoted the sources as have said.

“Militant commanders have rushed to Makeen after receiving the information about deteriorating health of their top commander,” sources said.

“Last time a TTP Shoora meeting was called after Mehsud went into a coma. His condition was reportedly so bad that the meeting was about to nominate a new ameer.” Mehsud seriously ill, falls into coma

“However, he regained consciousness and made a swift recovery,” sources added.

“This time, however, his condition may be more serious as his kidneys are failing,” sources said.

http://thepost.com.pk/MainNewsT.aspx?fdtl_id=1275&fb_id=2&catid=14

[The 801]

Pak Taliban commander Mehsud dies: Report
Press Trust of India
Wednesday, October 01, 2008, (Islamabad)
Pakistan Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud, the alleged mastermind in the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto died on Tuesday after protracted illness, a media report said in Islamabad.

The Pakistan Tehrik-e-Taliban chief, who was believed to be suffering from diabetes and hypertension passed away, Dawn News said quoting official sources.

There was no word on the reported development from the numerous spokespersons of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan.

The News daily had reported earlier this week that Mehsud, who suffered from diabetes, had been bed-ridden for the past three weeks and was unable to move, causing a lot of concern among the Taliban leaders.

It was also reported that his poor health had led to the convergence of the top militant leadership at Makeen in South Waziristan tribal region for a meeting.

The last time Mehsud had fallen ill a few months ago, he had gone into a coma. His condition was reportedly so bad that a meeting of top Taliban leaders was on the verge of nominating a new chief.

However, Mehsud regained consciousness and made a swift recovery.

"This time also he seems to have gone into a coma... This time, however, his condition may be more serious as his kidneys have failed because of the high level of sugar," a source was quoted as saying by the News early this week.

Mehsud, 35, a former physical instructor at a school had recently got married. Like his idol, Taliban leader Mullah Omar, Mehsud rarely allowed himself to be photographed or filmed.

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080067287&ch=10/1/2008%202:08:00%20AM

Anyone want to place a bet on this?

[NYer]

Sources: Rumors of Baitullah's death have been greatly exaggerated. (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/09/reports_of_baitullah.php)

[Casey]

Mehsud visits parts of S.Waziristan

Updated at: 2050 PST, Thursday, October 02, 2008

WANA: Supreme commander of the banned outfit Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, Baitullah Mehsud visited different area of South Waziristan on Thursday.

According to Taliban sources, Meshsud visited Makeen, Ladha, Badar, Salay Rogha and other areas.

The tribesmen upon seeing the Taliban commander, fired their guns in the air.

President Tehreek-i-Insaf South Waziristan, Toofan Burki garlanded Baitullah Mehsud and put traditional Pagri (turban) upon his head.

Speaking on the occasion, the speakers said the electronic media is airing news regarding the death of Baitullah Mehsud, causing concern among the tribesmen.

Therefore, the tribal elders decided that Mehsud should undertake visit of the tribal areas so that people could see him.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/updates.asp?id=56856

[The 801]

Taliban chief gets new wife
16 Oct 2008, 0119 hrs

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani Taliban leader has married for a second time a young girl from his tribe, around two weeks after several news channels cl
aimed he had died following a prolonged ailment, media reports said on Wednesday.

According to The News daily, Baitullah Mehsud, the head of a united front of smaller Taliban groups called the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or Pakistan Taliban Movement, openly celebrated his wedding in Dwa Toi village in his stronghold of South Waziristan, a tribal district along the Afghan border.
Rice and lamb meat was served to the guests of the ethnic Pashtun guerrilla commander, who has been accused of the assassination of former PM Benazir Bhutto.

Mehsud, in his mid 30s, suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure and kidney disease. Earlier this month CNN and Pakistani Geo news channel reported his death.

"The doctor never left Baitullah alone (during the wedding)," one guest told the newspaper, adding that he apparently had a device in his hand in case he needed drugs to be administered to him in emergency.

The bride, whose age is not mentioned in the report, is from Mehsud's Shabikhel tribe. Mehsud went for the second marriage because he had only four daughters but no son from his first wife, a close aide to the Taliban commander told the newspaper.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Taliban_chief_gets_new_wife/articleshow/3600756.cms


Now don't you all think that I'm pretty mature not to make any comments about how a his circulatory system precludes him from consummating his pedophilic fantasy?
Don't you? Huh?

[The 801]

Mehsud’s brother killed in Bannu

PESHAWAR: Police have found the bullet-riddled body of a man said to be the younger brother of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Baitullah Mehsud, in NWFP’s southern district of Bannu. The body was found on Sunday 14 kilometres from Bannu on a road. Police identified the man as Yahya Mehsud, the son of Haroon Mehsud and a resident of South Waziristan. AFP confirmed the man was Baitullah Mehsud’s younger brother. The agency said that Yahya was abducted on Sunday, and his body was later found dumped. Police said the Yahya was not a member of TTP, and was not wanted in any case. Meanwhile in Khyber Agency, gunmen killed an elder of the Kookikhel tribe in the area’s Jamrud tehsil on Sunday.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008\10\27\story_27-10-2008_pg1_2

Comment:
That musta been some party hoo-boy, they had at that wedding. Wonder if the bride knew Yahya?

Question: Who or what is AFP? Agence France-Presse ?


BANNU (NNI): Some unknown armed men killed the brother of Baitullah Mehsud, head of the warring defunct organization Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, police said on Sunday. According to details, Yakhya Khan, brother of Baitullah Mehsud has been killed by some unknown armed men and his dead body handed over to his relatives, Ismail Khan, Bannu police official told BBC. "One dead body was found on Sunday at 2pm from Nalakasu the jurisdiction of Domil police station killed by firing and the residents of Daud Shah confirmed that the dead body is that of Yakhya Khan brother of Baitullah Mehsud, had been residing in the area for a long time", he said. Rahat Ullah, relative of the deceased also confirmed that and said 32-year old Yakhya Khan is the brother of Baitullah Mehsud. He said Yakhya Khan had shifted his family to South Waziristan Agency after that he was living here alone. Rahat Ullah said Yakhya Khan was a religious and peaceful person and residents of the area had great respect for him. He said Baitullah has been informed about the incident but no had come to Bannu to receive the dead body. Residents of the Makin, native area of Baitullah Mehsud said when contacted that neither they know Yakhya Khan nor have any information about his death.

[The 801]

Interesting analysis

Robocop meets Baitullah Mehsud
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
By Khalid Aziz
During the past week or so, militants have carried out serious attacks in Peshawar and nearby Jamrud in Khyber agency. It included the unfortunate murder of development worker Stephen Vance, the kidnapping of an Iranian diplomat, a botched kidnapping of two journalists one of them Japanese, a suicide attack at the gates of the stadium where an inter-provincial sports competition was being held. There were other offences in the rural areas close to Peshawar. Clearly the militants aim to break the will of the government and force it to negotiate with them. They want to end operations which are going on in Bajaur and to stop new ones that have been launched in Mohmand Agency. The operation in Bajaur has been extended because the military has unexpectedly run up against resistance from well located tunnels reminiscent of Vietnam.

A serious attack was launched on a NATO convoy by a 400-strong Wazir and Mehsud contingent loyal to Baitullah Mehsud which was stationed at Jamrud. Last Sunday they hijacked 13 NATO trailers, although most were retrieved after the use of helicopter gunships. This force of militants belonging to South Waziristan is operating 270 miles away from its tribal homeland and indicates a level of sophistication which had not been seen before.

After the US failed to obtain Pakistan's support for the sending US Special Forces into the tribal areas, it has increased the use of UAVs for attacking militants. Many of the drone strikes are now taking place 30 miles deep into Pakistani territory. This brings a new set of worries. In a sense, what we are witnessing is a contest between technology and the ingenuity of the militants. The drone in many ways represents Robocop, who is a fictional character in a movie of the same name. He is a cyborg having the brain of a dead policeman implanted in his metal body, which incorporates a multitude of weapon systems. His programme is designed to fight crime and to achieve public trust, protect the innocent and uphold the law. In my analogy, the drone is Robocop pitted against the militants in the form of Baitullah Mehsud. In this sense the fighting in Pakistan and Afghanistan depicts a battle between a sophisticated military on one hand and the less sophisticated militant on the other. The US does have the advantage of technology, but the drones have not increased public trust. As a matter of fact, Pakistanis have condemned the drone attacks because they have killed many innocent people. Secondly, drones violate Pakistan's sovereignty and, as such, lowers its authority in the public mind.

As I said in an earlier article, the main reason leading to the creation of militants lie in the dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Unless that issue is settled, there will be Arabs who would contest US hegemony and fuel the conflagration in this region. Apparently there is little chance of a reduction in the near future of the number of Arabs seeking refuge in the loosely administered FATA. The impact of the Robocop strategy is mainly negative. It weakens Pakistan's legitimacy and makes it harder to win the battle for hearts and minds. On the other hand, the militants damage their own cause when they use suicide bombings, which have the same alienating impact. Thus, both the strategies fail the legitimacy test that is so important for success.

However, a new danger is looming, and that is the increasing penetration of the drones into Pakistan. Since they follow militants fleeing the tribal areas because of increased US surveillance into NWFP districts, will the drones now also engage targets in the urban areas of the province? Will there be drone flights over Bannu or Peshawar too in the next few weeks? If so, they will have serious repercussions which may lead to agitations that could, in turn, destabilise the government. They could cause chaos and increase support for the militants. One must therefore define the limits to the use of drones and their other implications. This example clearly shows the type of difficulties that the war on terrorism has unleashed mainly I believe because of the inability to think through the implication of measures adopted to deal with the crisis in Pakistan.

Another important element taken for granted, and one which needs reconsideration, is the administration of Afghanistan as a democracy. Afghanistan remains an under-developed society where nationhood is not complete yet. In many ways we in Pakistan suffer from the same type of problems. Both countries are moving from a traditional political base towards modernity. Both face a large number of challenges. Pakistan's advantage lies in its more developed institutional framework, its greater urbanisation, larger technological base and its military; Afghanistan suffers deficits in all these areas. Secondly, Afghans have always tried to remain insular. Since the crowning of Ahmed Shah in 1747 as the first Afghan ruler and the country's progress towards modernity under Amir Abdur Rehman, the first king of modern Afghanistan, we find a constant tussle between a centralising "monarchy" and the tradition-driven countryside, especially in the Pakhtun areas that make up the largest ethnic group of people in Afghanistan. Clearly there is a need to recognise that Afghanistan is basically a tribal union where the conflict between tradition and modernity is unresolved even today. Karzai is seen by the Afghans as a foreign- supported moderniser while the Taliban are identified as nationalists standing for the traditional system. It must be underlined that many of the discontented Pakhtuns in FATA and Afghanistan are not willing to forego their freedom for peace or development.

Secondly, Afghanistan (much like Pakistan) has remained a rentier state where consent was obtained by transferring money to regional elites. For example, revolts occurred when King Amanullah tried to tax people and modernise the Afghan state. History teaches that Afghanistan needs rents to remain stable. In 1894 Amir Abdur Rehman received an annual subsidy of ?1.8 million from the British. This amount was given to prevent him from siding with the Russians. He used the money to strengthen his rule by building an effective army and collecting taxes. This trend of obtaining funds from foreign countries has continued throughout Afghan history. During Sardar Daud's rule before the Soviet invasion in December 1979, almost 80 percent of Afghanistan's funds came from the US and the USSR.

In view of the discussion above the following recommendations if implemented will improve the security situation. Firstly, the bands of outside tribesmen present in other Agencies must be forced to return. Secondly, Pakistan should perform the interdiction of foreigners itself, however difficult that may be. Otherwise the drones will destabilise this country. The US needs to formulate a Pakhtun policy since its actions cause region wide repercussions. Secondly, it should accept that success will be achieved in Afghanistan if that country is managed as a tribal and traditional state.



The writer is a former chief secretary of NWFP and heads the Regional Institute of Policy Research. Email: azizkhalid@gmail.com

http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=147366

[NYer]

It'd be more interesting without the tiresome reference to Israel and Palestinians. He lost me there.

[The 801]

Yea, NYer, couldn't agree more.

Its not the real reason that they act this way. Its power. If they were really concerned about the Palestinians, they could get involved with actual process and get somewhere. Its kind of sad to see that if the Palestinian problem actual got solved, it would not change anything. So, therefore, while it would be healthy for isreali security, it would provide almost no international relief from terrorism.

[The 801]

Bomb wounds Pakistan Taliban commander: officials

3 hours ago

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) — A Pakistani Taliban commander and key aide to tribal warlord Baitullah Mehsud was wounded Monday in a bomb attack that killed his driver near the Afghan border, officials said.

A remote-controlled bomb exploded by the side of a road in the Tanga area of South Waziristan, a semi-autonomous tribal district, when Noor Syed Mehsud was passing in a vehicle en route to Jandola village.

"According to reports received here Mehsud was slightly injured, while his driver died in the bomb blast," a security official in Wana, the main town of South Waziristan, told AFP.

Another security official confirmed the incident. Preliminary reports attributed the bombing to factional fighting between Baitullah Mehsud's men and loyalists of Abdullah Mehsud, he said.

Abdullah Mehsud, 32, became leader of Pakistani Taliban insurgents based in South Waziristan in 2004, after Pakistani government forces launched military operations to clear out extremists from the troubled tribal region.

He was accused of having links with Al-Qaeda and spent 25 months in the US-run prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba until his release in March 2004.

Abdullah was wanted for the 2004 kidnapping of two Chinese engineers in Pakistan and he blew himself up with a hand grenade in July 2007 to avoid capture by security forces.

Baitullah Mehsud took over command of the Taliban militants after Abdullah and formed the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) umbrella group.

Pakistan's former government accused Baitullah of plotting the assassination of ex-prime minister Benazir Bhutto in December 2007. He denies any role.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iSGSqE4gAKpy7qFVaPkM3fP2Gi7w

Abdullah Mehsud's boys just cut off the Polish Engineer's head.

[The 801]

U.S. Airstrike Kills 25 in Pakistan


By PIR ZUBAIR SHAH
Published: February 14, 2009

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Two missiles fired from American drone aircraft killed at least 25 people, including Arab and Uzbek fighters of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, in South Waziristan on Saturday morning, according to a Pakistani intelligence official and local residents.

The attack was on three compounds, including one where the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, and foreign and local fighters loyal to him sometimes gather, according to the official and residents.

Mr. Mehsud, one of the most feared leaders in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas, was not among those killed, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

Mr. Mehsud, a Pakistani, has fought the government openly in the past, and government and intelligence officials say forces loyal to him continue to attack Pakistani troops outside South Waziristan, in the Swat Valley and the Bajaur and Mohmand tribal areas.

He is considered responsible for many of the suicide attacks in Pakistan last year; the previous government, led by Pervez Musharraf, also accused Mr. Mehsud in the killing of Benazir Bhutto, a former Pakistani prime minister.

If Mr. Mehsud was the target of the attack, it would be the first time that American missiles were aimed at him, the intelligence official said.

American missile attacks by remotely piloted aircraft have generally been aimed at foreign Qaeda fighters and Taliban guerrillas from Afghanistan, who take shelter in Pakistan between raids into their country to fight American and NATO soldiers.

It was unclear if any civilians were killed Saturday.

The attack followed a visit to Pakistan last week by Richard C. Holbrooke, the special American envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, that was part of a top-to-bottom review of American policy in the region ordered by President Obama.

During his visit, Mr. Holbrooke heard a litany of complaints about the drone strikes, some of which have inadvertently killed civilians, making it harder for the country’s shaky government to win support for its own military operations against the Taliban.

The drone attack also comes after a statement in Congress on Friday by Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, that the aircraft take off from a base in Pakistan.

“As I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base,” Ms. Feinstein said during a hearing attended by the director of United States national intelligence, Adm. Dennis C. Blair.

The drone attacks, especially in the last six months, have increased anti-American sentiment in Pakistan to very high levels, and Ms. Feinstein’s statement is likely to further inflame the protests over them. Her statement was prominently covered by the Pakistani press on Saturday morning.

Although many Pakistanis have accused their government of giving quiet approval for the United States to strike inside the tribal areas, they also assumed that the strikes came from Afghanistan.

Since the beginning of 2008, the American drones have carried out nearly 30 missile attacks against Qaeda and Taliban targets in the tribal areas, according to a report by the Council of Foreign Relations in Washington.

Two missile attacks just days after President Obama was inaugurated indicated that his administration, at least for now, planned to continue the policy of the Bush administration.

The compounds that were hit Saturday were in the village of Shwangai, near the town of Makeen. The village is about 60 miles from the Afghan border.

A resident of the area said that bodies were still being recovered from the debris hours after the attack. “The bodies of the dead were charred beyond recognition,” said Khan Zaman, a resident of nearby Makeen.

The attack was the fourth in the area under the control of Mr. Mehsud, although none of the others were believed to have had him as a target. In a strike last November, Khalid Habib, described as the fourth-ranking person in the Qaeda hierarchy, was killed.

Most of these attacks have occurred since September, when President Asif Ali Zardari took power.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/world/asia/15pstan.html?em

[The 801]

Taliban network developing in Karachi

KARACHI: The banned organisation Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has established a strong network in Karachi, in association with local jihadi outfits and other groups, it has been learnt. This network is involved in major illegal activities and sending funds worth millions of rupees to the militants in Tribal Areas. Well-placed sources in the police department have disclosed that banned sectarian outfits are active in various parts of Karachi and are closely connected to the Baitullah Mehsud-led TTP. The six associates of Baitullah Mehsud who were recently arrested in Manghopir have told intelligence agencies that jihadis are present in large numbers in the city and have a close coordination with each other. Groups involved in crimes such as drug smuggling, car lifting etc are also in contact with the Taliban. Through this network in which even some political and ethnic parties are involved, large sums of money are being sent to aid the Taliban in the Tribal Areas. The CID and Special Investigation Branch have also apprehended dozens of people affiliated to the Taliban bringing drugs and arms to Karachi travelling in passenger coaches. aaj kal report

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\02\19\story_19-2-2009_pg7_22

[The 801]

US announces five million dollar reward for Baitullah Mehsud
Washington, Thu, 26 Mar 2009 ANI

Washington, Mar.26 (ANI): The United States has announced a reward of five million dollars to anyone revealing the whereabouts of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Baitullah Mehsud.

US State Department statement also said that a similar bounty has been put on the senior leader of the Haqqani group, Sirajuddin Haqqani, and a million dollar reward on high ranking Al-Qaeda leader Abu Yahya al-Libi.


In another significant event, US President Barack Obama expressed his concern over increasing insurgency in Afghanistan, and discussed ways to improve co-ordination between the US military and troops of other countries in the region during a meeting with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. (ANI)

http://www.newstrackindia.com/newsdetails/78386

[The 801]

U.S. missile kills 13 in Pakistan
Sat Apr 4, 2009 4:52pm BST

Pakistanis find 43 dead in truck from Afghanistan
Six killed in attack in Pakistan capital, official says

By Alamgir Bitani

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - A pilotless U.S. drone aircraft fired a missile in northwest Pakistan on Saturday, killing 13 people including some foreign militants, security officials and residents said.

Hours later, Pakistani Taliban militant leader Baitullah Mehsud claimed responsibility for a shooting at a U.S. immigration center in New York in which a gunman killed 13 people, saying it was revenge for U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan.

U.S. officials were not immediately available for comment about Mehsud's claim, but Pakistani security analysts dismissed it as a publicity stunt.

The New York Times quoted representative Maurice Hinchey, whose district includes the town of Binghamton in New York state where the shooting took place, as saying indications were the gunman was an immigrant from Vietnam.

With the Afghan insurgency intensifying, the United States began launching more drone strikes against al Qaeda and Taliban militants on the Pakistani side of the border last year.

Since then, about 35 U.S. strikes have killed about 350 people, including mid-level al Qaeda members, according to reports from Pakistani officials, residents and militants.

The attack Saturday was in the North Waziristan region, a stronghold of al Qaeda and Taliban militants on the Afghan border, about 35 km (20 miles) west of the region's main town of Miranshah at about 3 a.m. (5 p.m. EST on Friday).

"The missile hit a house where some guests were staying," one intelligence agency official said, referring to foreign militants. "We have information that 13 people were killed including some guests."

Later, a suicide bomber was killed as he approached a military convoy. His explosives went off, killing three passersby, witnesses and a hospital official said.

Many al Qaeda and Taliban militants fled to northwestern Pakistani border regions such as North Waziristan after U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban in Afghanistan in late 2001.

From the remote ethnic Pashtun tribal lands that have never been governed by any Pakistani government, the militants have orchestrated the Afghan war and plotted violence beyond.

"MY MEN"

Nuclear-armed, U.S. ally Pakistan objects to the missile strikes, saying they are a violation of its sovereignty and are counter-productive.

Officials say about one in six of the strikes over the past year caused civilian deaths without killing any militants, and that fuels anti-U.S. sentiment, complicating the military's struggle to subdue violence.

The concentration of strikes in Waziristan was also pushing some militants eastwards, deeper into Pakistan, they say.

Taliban leader Mehsud said Tuesday his group had carried out an assault on a police training center in the Pakistani city of Lahore in retaliation for U.S. drone attacks. He vowed more attacks in Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States.

Security analysts say Mehsud does not have the capacity to conduct attacks in the United Sates by himself but he is part of an al Qaeda-led network that does have global reach.

Mehsud told Reuters by telephone that two men, one a Pakistani and the other a "foreigner," had carried out the shooting in the United States Friday.

"I accept responsibility. They were my men. I gave them orders in reaction to U.S. drone attacks," he said, adding one of the attackers had escaped and telephoned him.

Pakistani analysts were skeptical.

"It seems it's a move to boost his image. To me, it's just bluster and bluff," said Talat Masood, a retired general turned analyst. "It shows he's under tremendous pressure."

Competition has intensified between Taliban factions in the northwest and the drone strikes are taking a toll, analysts say.

Last month, the United States announced a $5 million reward for information leaded to Mehsud's location or arrest.

"He doesn't have the capacity (to attack in the United States)," said defense analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi.

(Additional reporting by Kamran Haider and Haji Mujtaba; Writing by Robert Birsel, Editing by Dean Yates)

http://uk.reuters.com/article/burningIssues/idUKTRE53309720090404

[The 801]

Pakistani Taliban under pressure from tribal rival
A escalating feud could distract Baitullah Mehsud and his 10,000-plus men from fighting Western forces in Afghanistan.
By Rehmat Mehsud | Contributor
and Ben Arnoldy | Staff writer

from the May 10, 2009 edition

Wana, Pakistan; and New Delhi - A top leader of the Pakistani Taliban, slapped in March with a $5 million bounty by the United States, is wanted worldwide.

Yet the real danger Baitullah Mehsud faces may be an emerging rival from his local tribe in northwestern Pakistan.

The power struggle could distract his Taliban forces along the Afghan border from their spring offensive against US and allied troops.

Mr. Mehsud commands one of the three major pockets of Taliban fighters in Pakistan. His rugged domain here in South Waziristan provides a launch pad for cross-border attacks into southern Afghanistan and a suspected hideout for Al Qaeda figures.

His new adversary, Qari Zainuddin Mehsud, has joined forces with another splinter group and has dispatched his men to cut off Baitullah's movements and foment a popular uprising against him.

"I think Baitullah Mehsud is feeling constrained by this," says Mahmood Shah, Pakistan's former security chief of this lawless border region known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Zainuddin remains less organized than Baitullah, says Mr. Shah, but he is gaining in momentum and popularity among the local fighters.

The rupture raises the prospect that tribal rivalries could be exploited to sap the Taliban movement. But analysts warn that there are limits to a divide-and-rule strategy given the way the Taliban have undermined tribal power structures – and resisted meddling by Islamabad or Washington.

"When a group gets government patronage it gets discredited, so I think for some time the group should be left on their own," says Shah. "If [outside governments] have to do it, they should do it very secretly."

Two subtribes, one full-blown feud

This particular rift between Zainuddin and Baitullah dates back to March 2008. Assailants in the town of Tank killed Muhammad Yousaf, a prominent elder of the Shamenkhel subtribe and Zainuddin's uncle. The Taliban have been known to target tribal elders in an effort to seize power. Soon after, gunmen shot dead Baitullah's younger brother, Yahya Khan Mehsud.( reported in this thread -801)

Until this incident, Zainuddin had been a leading member of Baitullah's fighting force. Now tit-for-tat killings have sowed the seeds for a full-blown blood feud between the two men and their subtribes.

Baitullah warned his rival to "be ready for a bloody clash" after an Apr. 15 deadline for surrender passed, in a message passed to Zainuddin through tribal elders. "Neutral members of the population should stay indoors, because everyone who gets in our way will be crushed," he threatened.

Such tough talk has become the norm between the two men, whose forces have clashed on and off over the past year.

Late last month, Zainuddin's men distributed pamphlets in Tank, a gateway to the embattled South Waziristan, where many locals have fled, encouraging them to join him in trying to oust Baitullah Mehsud from the region.

"Baitullah runs a terror network and a death squad," the pamphlet said. "He has slaughtered up to 283 tribal elders who were opposing him and killed lot of religious leaders. Come forward, my clansmen, to force him out of the once peaceful South Waziristan."

Shah says that Zainuddin has tried to pick away at Baitullah's Islamic credentials by asking how it's right to be fighting the Army of Pakistan, a Muslim nation.

But it would be a mistake to see Zainuddin as some sort of moderate, argues Ijaz Khan, a professor of international relations at the University of Peshawar. "He is a militant. He is as much a Talib as Baitullah," says Mr. Khan.

Keeping Baitullah busy

Yet Zainuddin does have the potential to keep Baitullah busy with a serious showdown. A Pakistani intelligence official estimates Zainuddin's strength at about 2,000 to 3,000 fighters, while Baitullah, who until recently had the support of 10,000 to 13,000, these days is losing men. A head-on fight would create "unspeakable" trouble for Baitullah, says former ambassador to Afghanistan Rustam Shah Mohmand, because Zainuddin also enjoys greater support from the local population.

"If the clash happens between Baitullah Mehsud and Qari [Zainuddin], then it will lead to greater mayhem among the Taliban ranks elsewhere in the Pakistani tribal region," says Mr. Shah, the former FATA chief.

That would be welcome news for Pakistani forces battling Baitullah, whom the government blames for the 2007 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto as well as a recent attack on a police academy in Lahore. Some here believe that the government is secretly supporting Zainuddin for this reason.

Shah doubts US-led forces in Afghanistan would see much change if Baitullah were distracted from fighting them because he says the Pakistani Taliban's reach across the border is overhyped.

But grooming rivals may backfire

Even if such tribal infighting does benefit American and Pakistani troops in the short term, some analysts argue against Washington and Islamabad encouraging such rifts.

"This strategy may appear to give you short-term gains, but I think over the intermediate term we may see many warlords and groups coming up turning around against the government and make a much worse situation," says Mr. Khan.

On top of this concern, Khan says the Taliban have irrevocably weakened the traditional tribal system of elders: "If the Taliban already targeted the tribal elders, you cannot create new tribal elders."

He argues, instead, for bringing modern state institutions – security forces, courts, and political parties – into this region, which until now has been afforded great autonomy.

Others say that over time new leaders could emerge by a gradual process of reputation building, but it requires the fear of the Taliban to be lifted. Popular disenchantment with the Taliban may be helping that process along, and could explain some of Zainuddin's emerging strength.

"After having been in the Taliban system for two years, slowly people are starting to feel an aversion to that system, and they think the old system was probably better," says Shah.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0510/p06s01-wosc.html

[The 801]

Lots of Mehsud information these days, so how about this one....

Baitullah aide held in Karachi

Monday, June 08, 2009

By our correspondent

KARACHI: The Criminal Investigation Department arrested a close aide of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Baitullah Mehsud and recovered 10 suicide jackets and other weapons from his possession here on Sunday.

Addressing a press conference, Additional Inspector General of Police Syed Jawed Ali Shah Bukhari said they had received a tip-off about the presence of some Mehsud aides in Lyari Town, where they were planning to carry out terrorist activities in the city.

Subsequently, he said, a raid was carried out during which Mohammed Naeem Rehmani, son of Qadir Bukhsh Rehmani, was arrested. However, his accomplices fled under the cover of fire. During the search of his house, the police recovered 10 suicide jackets, 10 hand grenades, two Kalashnikovs, six detonators besides 200 bullets.

Naeem has reportedly told the investigators that he was trained in Waziristan by Mehsudís commanders and was sent to Karachi to recruit youngsters for suicide attacks. He told the police that they used to recruit youths from Madrassas, who were then sent to Qari Hussain Mehsud in Waziristan for receiving the training for suicide bombing.

Naeem and his accomplices were planning to attack Army installations, government offices, CID personnel and other important personalities. It is pertinent to mention that Naeem Rehmani was arrested in 2003 from Karachi and was imprisoned for three years.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=22608

Story covered elsewhere, but The News is still a curious source to me.

[The 801]

Pakistan orders manhunt for Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud

Islamabad accuses country's most wanted man of involvement in suicide bombings it says have killed at least 1,200 people

The Pakistan government has ordered the army to hunt down the Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in his mountain hideout in South Waziristan.

"Baitullah Mehsud is the root cause of all evils," said the governor of North-West Frontier province, Owais Ghani, announcing the operation in Islamabad.

The precise details of the manhunt remain unclear and the military said it was "evaluating the orders". But the operation promises to be a tough campaign against a determined enemy in some of the world's most difficult fighting terrain.

South Waziristan is a rugged mountainous area that was the scene of fierce battles between British colonial forces and tribal rebels during the 1930s and 40s. It is considered a possible hiding place of Osama bin Laden.

Mehsud, a former bodybuilder and smuggler, is the most prominent of Pakistan's Taliban leaders. His Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) group has allies across the tribal belt and has participated in recent battles against the Pakistani army in the Swat valley.

Mehsud has become public enemy number one in Pakistan for his role in dozens of suicide bombings in major cities over the past two years that the government says has killed over 1,200 people. But he has denied involvement in the most notorious attack of recent years – the assassination of the former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in December 2007.

Limited operations against him have already started. Fighting erupted over the weekend in the village of Spinkai Raghzai, at the entrance to Mehsud's mountain demesne.

The nature and size of the forthcoming operation remain unclear. An army spokesman, Major General Athar Abbas, told the Associated Press: "The government has made the announcement. We will give a comment after evaluating the orders."

The operation is of great interest to the US because Waziristan is the base for hundreds of foreign al-Qaida fighters, some of whom are believed to be plotting attacks on the west.

Waziristan is also the base for several large groups of Pakistani Taliban fighters, who use the rugged terrain to cross into Afghanistan and fight US-led Nato forces.

Over the weekend a presumed US drone attacked a three-vehicle convoy near Makeen, in Mehsud's area, killing five people.

The most pressing question for the army is whether the other two major Taliban commanders in the area – Qari Gul Bahadur in North Waziristan and Maulvi Nazeer in the south – will join hands with Mehsud. The three militant leaders, previously rivals, formed a tactical alliance earlier this year.

Mehsud also faces an internal challenge from a fellow tribesman, Qari Zainuddin. But Zainuddin has limited forces and is tainted in the eyes of some tribesmen by his supposed support from the army. A second, less significant, challenge to Mehsud comes from a commander called Turkistan, who controls territory in the neighbouring Bhittani area.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/15/pakistan-taliban-leader-mehsud-manhunt

[The 801]

Pakistani aircraft hit militants near Afghan border

By Hafiz Wazir
Reuters
Sunday, June 21, 2009; 7:24 AM

WANA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani forces used aircraft and artillery on Sunday as they stepped up an assault aimed at eliminating Pakistani Taliban commander Baituallah Mehsud.

Security forces have secured much of the scenic Swat Valley, northwest of Islamabad, in the past six weeks and the military plans to extend its offensive to al Qaeda ally Mehsud, holed up in the South Waziristan region near the Afghan border.

The military action came after Taliban gains raised fears for the future of nuclear-armed Pakistan, a vital ally for the United States as it strives to defeat al Qaeda and stabilize Afghanistan.

A full-scale offensive has not yet begun in South Waziristan but fighter jets have been attacking Mehsud's positions in recent days, and did so again on Sunday.

"It's very scary. Jets have carried out heavy bombing. I saw billows of smoke and dust coming from houses that were hit," Jahangir Barki, a residents of Wana, South Waziristan's main town, told Reuters.

Security forces also fired artillery at an office of a top militant commander allied with Mehsud, Maulvi Nazir, residents said. The commander was not there at the time, they said.

The military has said it is trying to clear militants from a stretch of the main road linking Wana with North West Frontier Province.

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding out in a militant enclave somewhere in the ungoverned ethnic Pashtun tribal lands along the Afghan border.

GOING HOME

The top government official in Swat, which is not on the Afghan border but in North West Frontier Province, said electricity and gas had been restored in many areas and residents who had fled from the fighting could soon come home.

"Hopefully, we'll be receiving our people from June 25 as things are in place in some areas. Other areas will get power and gas as soon as they're cleared by security forces," Khushal Khan, the top government official in the valley, told Reuters.

The military reported sporadic clashes in some parts of Swat on Sunday and said seven militants had been killed in the latest violence.

More than 1,300 militants have been killed in the fighting in Swat and neighboring districts since early May, according to the military. Independent casualty estimates are not available.

Nearly 2 million people have fled fighting in the northwest which intensified in late April when the army moved to push the Taliban out of Buner district, 100 km (60 miles) from Islamabad, before launching an offensive in Swat.

Thousands of people have been returning to Buner since the government announced last Friday it was now safe for people to go home.

Most of Pakistan's political parties and members of the public support the offensive against the Taliban but the government risks seeing that backing disappear if the people displaced by the fighting are seen to suffer.

A government official in the Bajaur region, another militant enclave on the Afghan border, to the north of the city of Peshawar, said three militant hideouts had been destroyed in bombing by aircraft there on Sunday.

The official, Saad Ghulam, said authorities did not have information about casualties.

(Additional reporting by Sahibzada Bahuddin, Mian Saeed-ur-Rehman, Junaid Khan; Writing by Kamran Haider; Editing by Robert Birsel and Alex Richardson)


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/21/AR2009062100352.html

[The 801]

Taliban chief killed by 'own guard'
A guard who was injured in the attack accused Baitullah Mehsud of being behind the killing[AFP]

A Taliban leader who criticised the group's Pakistani head of command over attacks that killed two civilians has been shot dead, reportedly by one of his own guards.

The shooting of Qari Zainuddin on Tuesday appears to indicate the deepening of divisions within the Taliban as Pakistan's military conducts an operation to rid the Swat valley and South Waziristan of Taliban strongholds.

Zainuddin, who was shot dead in the town of Dera Ismail Khan in the southern tip of the North West Frontier Province, had emerged as Baitullah Mehsud's chief rival.

Zainuddin was pronounced dead with multiple gunshot wounds to the head and chest upon arrival at the local hospital, a local doctor said.

Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, reporting from the Pakistani capital Islamabad, said: "Zainuddin had accused Baitullah Mehsud of going against the tenets of Islam for carrying out attacks on religious scholars.

"He said he would take his men and go after Baitullah Mehsud."

Baz Mohammad, one of Zainuddin's aides, was also wounded and said that the guard stormed into a room at the compound immediately following morning prayers and opened fire. Mohammad accused Mehsud of organising the attack.

"It was definitely Baitullah's man who infiltrated our ranks, and he has done his job," Mohammad said.

Mahmood Shah, a former Pakistani security official, said that the incident sends a message to the government that it must launch a comprehensive operation to eliminate Mehsud.

"You simply can't eliminate him through local efforts; instead, you need a major force," Shah said.

The military has been attacking fighters loyal to Mehsud, Pakistan's Taliban leader, in the South Waziristan region that borders Afghanistan.

On Monday, Taliban fighters used rockets, mortars and other weapons to attack Pakistani military positions in the northwest, but the military responded swiftly with air raids that left at least 25 dead, officials said.

Divisions

Zainuddin had denounced Mehsud for attacks that left two civilians dead, attacks that had apparently been launched in retaliation for an army offensive in the Swat Valley.

Zainuddin had said: "Whatever Baitullah Mehsud and his associates are doing in the name of Islam is not a jihad, and in fact it is rioting and terrorism.''

Zainuddin's motive for criticising Mehsud was not clear, but whatever the reason, it exposed divisions within the tribes.

Hyder said: "For the first time, there is a real sign showing there is a split within the tribes in that particular area and that is happening just as the military operation is under way."

"In the past, whenever there has been a confrontation between the military forces and loyalists of Baitullah Mehsud, there had been political intervention and talks to try to negotiate a settlement.

"But now the government is determined to go after Baitullah Mehsud.

"The military has decided it wants to take on Baitullah Mehsud for the first time in a determined and concerted manner."

While Mehsud has not claimed responsibility for the attack on Zainuddin, Hyder said that "his death would be a set back for the military which was planning its military operation in South Waziristan."

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/06/200962382215715372.html

[Klaus]

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=98839&sectionid=351020401

A tribal leader who earlier defected from Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud and revealed the militants group's ties with the US and Israel has been shot dead.

The assassination of Qari Zainuddin comes days after he revealed that their comrade was pursuing a US-Israeli agenda across the violence-wracked country.

Zainuddin, a 26-year-old rising tribesman who had called Mehsud "an American agent" was killed by a gunman in northwestern town of Dera Ismail Khan on Tuesday.

Zainuddin, who broke away from Mehsud, was also increasingly critical of Mehsud's use of suicide bombings targeting civilians.
In an interview with local media the defector said that Mehsud had established strong links with Israeli intelligence services, which were destabilizing the nuclear armed country. "These people (Mehsud and his men) are working against Islam."
Mehsud, a warlord in his late 30s, has claimed responsibility for dozens of devastating string attacks on both civilians and security forces throughout the feared region.

Insurgents have stepped up their attacks on civilian and religious centers in major cities across Pakistan, which has fueled anti-Taliban sentiments among the Pakistani people.

[The 801]

Pakistan: Taliban buying children for suicide attacks

From Nic Robertson
CNN


ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- A top Taliban leader in Pakistan is buying and selling children for suicide bombings, Pakistani and U.S. officials said.
Children are shown at a training camp in this video footage shot by the Taliban.

Children are shown at a training camp in this video footage shot by the Taliban.

Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud has been increasingly using the children in attacks, the officials said. A video released by Pakistan's military shows the children training for the task.

In the video of a training camp, children can be seen killing and going through exercises.

Mehsud has been selling the children, once trained, to other Taliban officials for $6,000 to $12,000, Pakistani military officials said.

Some of the children are as young as 11, the officials said.

"He has been been admitting he holds a training center for young boys, for preparing them for suicide bombing. So he is on record saying all this, accepting these crimes," said Major General Akhtar Abbas, spokesman for the Pakistani army.


The young suicide bombers may be able to reach targets unnoticed, the military said.

"If he is approaching on foot, there is a possibility he will bypass security," Abbas said.

"In certain areas, there is a possibility in the population centers everyone can not be checked physically, so he can create havoc there."

Pakistan has launched an offensive against the Taliban, started in the Swat region of the North West Frontier Province. The Taliban have countered with a spate of suicide bombings, including a July 2 attack in Rawalpindi, in which a suicide bomber on a motorcycle struck a Pakistani Defense Ministry bus. At least one person was killed and 29 others were wounded.

Pakistan's army said it is hunting Mehsud in the hopes that the supply of suicide bombers will dry up after the Taliban leader is captured.

Meanwhile, a suspected U.S. drone attack killed at least 12 people and wounded five others in northwest Pakistan Tuesday, Pakistani officials said.

The missile strikes in South Waziristan targeted a suspected Taliban hideout at a madrassa, or Muslim school, in Zangarah, according to intelligence officials.

The attack near the border with Afghanistan involved a pair of missiles shot from an unmanned drone, local resident Janbaz Mehsud told CNN. He said all the dead and wounded were Taliban.
advertisement

A local government official, who asked not to be named, said the madrassa was a training center for the Taliban and belongs to Baitullah Mehsud. That official put the death toll at 14, but said the number of dead could rise.

The U.S. military routinely offers no comment on reported drone attacks. However, the United States is the only country operating in the region known to have the ability to launch missiles from drones, which are controlled remotely.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/07/07/pakistan.child.bombers/

Historical Note:
These sorts of reports rarely hold up once examined in hindsight. I will try to locate some sort of statement from BM that this article claim exist.

[The 801]

Pakistan in 'secret negotiations' with Baitullah Mehsud

A ground assault against the head of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, has been delayed due to secret negotiations between him and security forces, according to a senior Pakistani official.


By Emal Khan in Peshawar and Isambard Wilkinson in Islamabad
Published: 1:58PM BST 27 Jul 2009

The details of the alleged negotiations are unclear but the Pakistan army has delayed launching attacks against Mr Mehsud after having corralled his stronghold in South Waziristan tribal area.

At least six brigades of Pakistani troops have blocked the four main arteries into Mehsud's fiefdom from where thousands have fled bombing raids and missile strikes from US unmanned drone aircraft.

The government wants Baitullah to announce that he would not attack the Pakistani government in the future. This would not be a total surrender, but a guarantee that Baitullah would not indulge in any anti-state activity in future, said the official.

He said this effort was under way because the army troops are engaged on several fronts and they did not want to go full-fledged in Waziristan in such a situation.

The official's claims could not be independently verified but the delay is likely to anger US officials how have been cheered by Pakistan's anti-Taliban operations to date.

The Pakistan army has steeled its resolve to tackle militancy in the past months by launching operations in several areas near the Afghan-Pakistani border.

The army denied any negotiations with Mehsud and says it wants to surround the militants and use air power and artillery to "soften them up".

The operation is a "punitive measure" said Maj General Athar Abbas, head of the army's public relations wing, using language echoing the British colonial-era punitive expeditions in the same tribal area.

In the past the army has struck several peace deals with Mehsud, frustrating senior Pakistani army commanders who said they were in a position in 2007 to "finish him off".

Accusations that Pakistan has a "dual policy" towards militants, one for the "good" Taliban and another for the "bad" are beginning to resurface now that the military has nearly finished its operation in Swat Valley.

At the weekend security forces announced the arrest of Shah Abdul Aziz, a former Pakistani parliamentarian, who been trying to negotiate a truce between Pakistan's security forces and the Taliban.

He is close to the Taliban leadership and with radical clerics such as the head of Islamabad's Red Mosque, Maulana Abdul Aziz.

He was arrested in connection with the beheading of Polish geologist Piotr Stanczak, who was kidnapped near the Afghan border last September


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/5918291/Pakistan-in-secret-negotiations-with-Baitullah-Mehsud.html


From the land of military untruth. Is everyone in pakistan full of shit? or is it a place everyone just says what they wish the truth was?

[The 801]

Strike Kills Wife of Taliban Chief

By PIR ZUBAIR SHAH and SALMAN MASOOD
Published: August 5, 2009

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Four people, including a wife of the Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, were killed Wednesday by what local residents said was a missile strike from an American drone.

The missile struck a house in the remote village of Zanghara, in South Waziristan, about 1 a.m. Wednesday. Local residents reached by telephone confirmed that one of the wives of Mr. Mehsud, the leader of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, was among those killed. Her name or age could not be confirmed.

Five others, including four children, were reportedly wounded in the missile strike.

The compound where the attack took place belonged to Ikramuddin Mehsud, a local tribal elder whose daughter is Baitullah Mehsud’s second wife. Ikramuddin Mehsud has acted as an interlocutor between his son-in-law and government officials. It was not clear whether he was also killed in the attack.

Details were sketchy, as the village is located in far-off mountains and considered a stronghold of a branch of the Mehsud tribe. It is close to Makeen, where Baitullah Mehsud was believed to be based until recently.

Speculation was rife in the area that Mr. Mehsud had come to Zanghra to see his wife and in-laws when the missile struck. But there was no confirmation of whether he was in the house at the time of the attack.

It was the third time that Zanghra village had been a target of drone strikes in recent months.

There has been a flurry of drone strikes aimed at Mr. Mehsud. He has claimed responsibility for a string of deadly suicide bombings across the country in recent years.

The United States has offered a bounty of $5 million for Mr. Mehsud, while Pakistan has offered $615,000.

Publicly, Pakistani officials condemn the drone strikes, saying they result in anger and resentment against the United States.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/world/asia/06pstan.html

[The 801]

Preliminary report.....


Baitullah Mehsud, Taliban Chief, Reportedly Killed In US Missile Strike


ISLAMABAD — U.S. and Pakistani authorities were investigating reports that Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud was killed in an American missile strike, officials from both countries said Thursday. If confirmed, Mehsud's demise would be a major boost to Pakistani and U.S. efforts to eradicate the Taliban and al-Qaida.

Mehsud is believed responsible for dozens of suicide attacks, beheadings and target killings in Pakistan. He is allied with al-Qaida and has been suspected in the killing of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Pakistan views him as its top internal threat and has been preparing an offensive against him. The U.S. sees him as a danger to the war effort in Afghanistan, largely because of the threat he is believed to pose to nuclear-armed Pakistan.

The missile strike hit the home of Mehsud's father-in-law in Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal region early Wednesday. Intelligence officials say Mehsud's second wife was among at least two people killed, and Mehsud associates have claimed he was not among the dead.

Pakistan army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas cautioned the reports of Mehsud's death were still unconfirmed. "We are receiving reports and probing," he said.

The U.S. government was also looking into the reports, according to a U.S. counterterrorism official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly.

The counterterrorism official indicated the United States did not yet have physical evidence – remains – that would prove who died. But he said there are other ways of determining who was killed in the strike. He declined to describe them.

For years, the U.S. has considered Mehsud a lesser threat to its interests than some of the other Pakistani Taliban, their Afghan counterparts and al-Qaida, because most of his attacks were focused inside Pakistan, not against U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan.
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That view appeared to change in recent months as Mehsud's power grew and concerns mounted that increasing violence in Pakistan could destabilize the U.S. ally and threaten the entire region.

In March, the State Department authorized a reward of up to $5 million for the militant chief. And increasingly, American missile strikes focused on Mehsud-related targets.

While Mehsud's death would be a big blow to the Taliban in Pakistan, he has deputies who could take his place. Whether a new leader could wreak as much havoc in Pakistan as Mehsud could depends largely on how much pressure the Pakistani military continues to put on the Taliban network, especially in South Waziristan.

Pakistan's record is spotty on that front. It has used both military action and truces to try to contain Mehsud over the years, but neither tactic seemed to work, despite billions in U.S. aid aimed at helping the Pakistanis tame the tribal areas.

Mehsud was not that prominent a militant when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks, according to Mahmood Shah, a former security chief for the tribal regions. In fact, Mehsud has struggled against such rivals as Abdullah Mehsud, an Afghan war veteran who had spent time in U.S. custody in Guantanamo Bay.

A February 2005 peace deal with Mehsud appeared to give him room to consolidate and boost his troop strength tremendously, and within months dozens of pro-government tribal elders in the region were gunned down on his command.

In December 2007, Mehsud became the head of a new coalition called the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or Pakistan's Taliban movement. Under Mehsud's guidance, the group has killed hundreds of Pakistanis in suicide and other attacks. He is believed to have as many as 20,000 fighters at his beck and call, among them a steady supply of suicide bombers.

Analysts say the reason for Mehsud's rise in the militant ranks is his alliances with al-Qaida and other violent extremist groups. U.S. intelligence has said al-Qaida has set up its operational headquarters in Mehsud's South Waziristan stronghold and the neighboring North Waziristan tribal area.

Mehsud has no record of attacking targets abroad, although he has threatened to attack Washington.

However, he is suspected of being behind a 10-man cell arrested in Barcelona in January 2008 for plotting suicide attacks in Spain. Pakistan's former government and the CIA have named him as the prime suspect behind the December 2007 killing of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. He has denied a role.

He also has withstood threats from within Taliban ranks. A few weeks ago, Qari Zainuddin, the leader of a renegade Pakistani Taliban faction who had criticized Mehsud's tactics, was shot to death – allegedly on Mehsud's orders.

In June of this year, Pakistan said it would launch an offensive against Mehsud in South Waziristan.

In the weeks that have followed, the army has relied heavily on airstrikes to target areas under Mehsud's control, but it has never quite gone full-scale with the offensive. Meantime, the missile strikes continued, raising speculation that the U.S. might get him first.

Pakistan publicly opposes the missile strikes, saying they anger local tribes and make it harder for the army to operate. Still, many analysts suspect the two countries have a secret deal allowing the strikes.

___

Associated Press writer Pamela Hess contributed to this report from Washington, D.C.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/06/baitullah-mehsud-taliban-_0_n_253546.html

Good riddance, this should get bin Laden's attention. -801

[Vancouver]

Today:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States believes Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a drone attack last week, President Obama's national security adviser said Sunday.

"We think so," Gen. Jim Jones told NBC's "Meet the Press," adding, "We put it in the 90 percent [likelihood] category."

[Vancouver]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/08/06/world/main5221385.shtml

Taliban Confirms Killing of Pakistan Chief

Militants, Pakistani Intel Sources Confirm Baitullah Mehsud's Demise to CBS News; Officials Say No Body Yet

(CBS/AP)

Pakistani officials and a senior Taliban figure told CBS News on Friday that the militant group's highest-ranking commander in the country was killed in a U.S. missile strike earlier in the week and that his body has been buried.

Locals residents in the area of the strike, Pakistani intelligence officials and two senior figures from Mehsud's own Taliban faction confirmed the death of Baitullah Mehsud, reports CBS News' Maria Usman. They say he was killed in the suspected CIA missile strike on his father-in-law's house.

[The 801]

Mehsud killed while getting 'leg massage': report

(AFP) – 15 hours ago

WASHINGTON — US officials stuck to their belief that Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud was killed last week, amid reports a CIA drone fired missiles at him as he was getting a leg massage on the roof of his father-in-law's house.

A US counterterrorism official told AFP on Monday "there are strong indications (Mehsud) is dead" following a missile attack launched from unmanned aircraft.

"No one is expecting him home for dinner tonight," the official said.

US President Barack Obama is being told Mehsud was killed after a "dramatic escalation" of aerial surveillance, with nine unmanned drones assigned to target the Taliban leader, a US official told CNN television.

On Wednesday night, US surveillance in Pakistan spied a man on the roof of Mehsud's father-in-law's home in South Waziristan.

The description was of a "short, stocky man who was following the physical description" of Mehsud, CNN said, citing the intelligence official.

A woman was massaging the man's leg and the Central Intelligence Agency knew Mehsud had diabetes, experienced pain in his legs, and often sought relief in that way, the report said.

Officials already had authorization from Obama to strike Mehsud if they thought they had a clear shot.

"That's when the CIA decided to move in," the network reported.

A top Taliban commander, Hakimullah Mehsud, earlier Monday challenged Pakistan to prove that Mehsud was dead, insisting in a telephone call to AFP that the warlord was still alive.

Although Pakistan said it believed Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a US drone attack along with his wife on Wednesday, there has been confusion over his fate.

Both governments have stopped short of confirming his death.

White House national security advisor Jim Jones said on Sunday that the United States was "90 percent" sure Baitullah Mehsud had died after a US missile strike.

"The Pakistani government believes he is and all the evidence we have suggests that," Jones said in an interview with Fox News Sunday.

Jones and Pakistani officials also said dissension has emerged in the ranks of the Taliban over who should succeed Baitullah Mehsud.

Hakimullah Mehsud said the insurgent group would issue a message in the next three to four days proving Baitullah Mehsud was still alive.

Hakimullah said Baitullah was only "a bit sick."

He did confirm to AFP, however, that Baitullah's wife had been killed in an attack, adding that the Taliban would soon avenge her death.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i4Eq_E-YhxSAgx8uKC1d9lezD2-

"Baitullah is not dead, Hakimullah said, he was only complaining about his wife droning on during the massage" - 801 version of the news

[The 801]

Yea,I know he's dead, But.....


Pakistan: Authorities ponder broader strategy against Taliban



Islamabad, 20 October (AKI) - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - As Pakistan's army claims to be pushing deeper inside the lawless South Waziristan tribal area, two options are under consideration in Islamabad for a conclusive defeat of the Taliban. Possible strategies include destroying its political support and breaking up terrorist networks in Pakistani cities.

On the fourth day of the ground offensive against the Pakistani Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters in South Waziristan in the northwest, the army said it was battling to gain control of key Taliban-held towns there, notably Kotkai - Taliban leader Haikmullah Mehsud's hometown.

Kotkai is also the alleged base for Qari Hussain Mehsud, once known as the mentor of the Pakistan Taliban’s suicide squad.

Pakistani authorities claimed on Tuesday around 100 suspected Taliban have been killed in the military offensive although the death toll is impossible to confirm independently as the battle zone is sealed off and all communication lines are down.


As the pakaistani military advanced on the area around Kotakai, a Mehsud tribal jirga was held in the North West Frontier Province city of Dera Ismail Khan, close to South Waziristan. The jirga members appealed to the Pakistani government not to view all Mehsud tribesmen as militants

A letter from the Pakistani army chief of army staff, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, was also read out at the meeting. It assured the Mehsuds that the military operation was only targeting militants, not the Mehsud tribe in general.

Pakistan's prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has said the government is determined to deliver a "decisive blow against the Taliban in South Waziristan, considered a militant stronghold.

But the government considers the militants' support in Pakistani cities the key problem. Recent weeks have seen a string of attacks against civilians, military, security services and government targets in cities in northern and central Pakistan in which over 150 people have died.

As recently as on Tuesday, a twin suicide bombing at Islamabad's Islamic University killed at least six people and injured 18. Pakistan's government blamed the Taliban for the attacks in the capital.

The government's belief that urban terrorist networks are a key problem led to the police crackdown on several illegally run Islamic seminaries in Islamabad last weekend. Dozens of terror suspects were detained in the capital and several in the eastern city of Lahore on Monday.

Also on Monday, police arrested dozens of suspected members of the outlawed Sunni Islamist Hizb-ut-Tahrir organisation following raids in an upscale neighbourhood of Islamabad.

“Hizb-ut-Tahrir is a peaceful political party which was holding a seminar at a residence to condemn the South Waziristan operation. We will continue to make our protest," the group's chief spokesman, Tehrir Naveed Butt, said in a statement.

Around 25,000 Pakistani troops are involved in the military offensive against suspected Taliban militants in South Waziristan. The militants are are blamed for two years of bloody attacks across Pakistan.

The soldiers on the ground are being backed by artillery, attack helicopters and fighter jets which have been pounding suspected Taliban hideouts in the battle zone since last week.

Officials say that over 100,000 residents have fled South Waziristan to the neighbouring districts of Tank and Dera Ismail Khan on foot and packed into pick-up trucks weighed down with bedding, utensils and animals, to escape the air strikes and fighting.

http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=3.0.3898556272


Looks like the tribe was happy when Mehsud was alive, but now he is dead, they want nothing to do with him.

[The 801]

CIA bomber calls for attacks on US in video


Jan 9, 9:35 AM (ET)

By NAHAL TOOSI and MAAMOUN YOUSSEF

ISLAMABAD (AP) - The Jordanian doctor who killed seven CIA employees in a suicide attack in Afghanistan said in video clips broadcast posthumously Saturday that all jihadists must attack U.S. targets to avenge the death of Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud.

Footage showed Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi - whom the CIA had cultivated as an asset against al-Qaida - sitting with Mehsud's successor in an undisclosed location. It essentially confirmed the Pakistani Taliban's claim of responsibility for one of the worst attacks in CIA history, though a senior militant told The Associated Press that al-Qaida and Afghan insurgents played roles, too.

The development may lead the U.S. to further aid and push Pakistan to crack down on Taliban militants on its soil. The success of the attack also raises doubts about the effectiveness of the Pakistani military's ongoing ground operation against the Pakistani Taliban in its stronghold in the South Waziristan tribal region.

Speaking in Arabic in the video shown on the al-Jazeera network, al-Balawi noted the Pakistani Taliban had given shelter to "emigrants" - Muslim fighters from abroad. Mehsud, the group's longtime leader, was killed in August by a CIA missile strike.

"We will never forget the blood of our emir Baitullah Mehsud," said al-Balawi, who wore an Afghan hat and a camouflage jacket on a 1 1/2 minute video clip. "We will always demand revenge for him inside America and outside. It is an obligation of the emigrants who were welcomed by the emir."

A similar clip appeared on the Pakistani channel Aaj, though in it al-Balawi read haltingly from a piece of paper in English, a language Pakistanis are more familiar with than Arabic.

The 32-year-old al-Balawi was apparently a double agent - perhaps even a triple-agent - with links to al-Qaida, the CIA and Jordanian intelligence. He was invited inside the CIA facility in Afghanistan's eastern Khost province bearing a promise of information about Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaida's second-in-command. Instead, he blew himself up in a Dec. 30 meeting, killing seven including the CIA's base chief.

In the Arabic clip, al-Balawi appeared to mock assertions that U.S. or Jordanian intelligence had employed him. In the English version, he said he had given up millions of dollars offered by the agencies to join the militants.

"The emigrant for the sake of God will not put his religion on the bargaining table and will not sell his religion even if they put the sun in his right hand and the moon in his left," he said in Arabic, referring to a verse in the Quran.

Al-Balawi ended by saying the Pakistani Taliban under the leadership of the new chief, Hakimullah Mehsud, would fight till victory.

In Jordan, al-Balawi's father confirmed the man on the clip was his son.

"He was very opposed to what was happening in Iraq, the occupation of Palestine and the killings of Muslims in Afghanistan," a downbeat Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi said. "We knew he was very zealous for God and his religion."

IntelCenter, a U.S.-based group monitoring extremist sites, said the video was released by the Pakistani Taliban. Behind Hakimullah Mehsud and al-Balawi was a banner bearing the Muslim creed, "There is no god but God, and Muhammad is His messenger."

The CIA attack would be the most prolific strike on a U.S. target by the Pakistani Taliban under the 20-something Hakimullah Mehsud's watch. It is also unusual because the Pakistani Taliban rarely claim responsibility for strikes in Afghanistan.

But statements by Afghan Taliban and al-Qaida leaders since the attack have confused the issue of who backed the plan, and it appears increasingly likely it was a joint operation.

A Pakistani Taliban militant told AP that al-Qaida and the Haqqani network, a highly independent Afghan Taliban faction, also were involved in the suicide attack. Al-Balawi received training from Qari Hussain, a leading commander of the Pakistani Taliban believed to have run suicide bombing camps, said the militant, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of security reasons.

In an earlier interview with AP, Hussain claimed responsibility on behalf of the Pakistani Taliban for the attack.

Mahmood Shah, a former security chief for Pakistan's tribal regions, said the Pakistani Taliban likely provided logistics to the bomber, but al-Qaida probably provided the recruit himself.

That's because the terror network is more able to tap into a reservoir of educated Arab militants, said Shah, who added al-Qaida may have formulated the overall plot as well. The Haqqani network likely gave consent because it controls much of Khost, he said.

A major Pakistani army offensive in South Waziristan tribal region is believed to have forced many Pakistani Taliban leaders to go on the run to other parts of the lawless tribal belt along the Afghan border. Hakimullah Mehsud, for instance, is believed to be evading the Pakistani military offensive by hiding somewhere along the border dividing South and North Waziristan tribal regions.

Though the group initially appeared to be in disarray after the August missile strike and the offensive, it and linked militant groups are suspected in a rising tide of violence in Pakistan since October. More than 600 people have died in a range of suicide and other bombings across the nuclear-armed country during the wave of bloodshed.

Pakistani Taliban involvement in the CIA attack could mean more pressure on Islamabad to act against the group, though Shah said Pakistan was doing everything it could do with limited resources.

He asserted that past claims of links between al-Qaida and the Pakistani Taliban had not always been taken seriously by the U.S., and this attack might change that. The U.S. has already been providing logistical support for the operation in South Waziristan.

Though linked, the Pakistani Taliban and the Afghan Taliban are separate movements.

The Afghan Taliban are focused on ridding Afghanistan of Western troops and toppling the U.S.-backed government in Kabul, while the Pakistani Taliban are primarily determined to overthrow the U.S.-allied government in Islamabad.

But both militant movements are largely driven by Pashtuns, an ethnic group that straddles both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border and whose members easily slip back and forth between the countries.

The secretive eastern Afghan CIA base that was attacked was reportedly used as a key outpost in the effort to identify and target terrorist leaders, many of whom were taken out by drone-fired missile strikes.

Despite the suicide bombing's devastating blow to the human intelligence of the CIA, there's been a surge in missile strikes on Pakistan's tribal regions, where many of the top terror leaders, including Osama bin Laden, are believed to be hiding. There have been at least five such missile strikes in North Waziristan since the bombing in Khost.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100109/D9D498500.html

I dislike "my way" news. Its morally vague creepy to me.