Taliban Leader Baitullah Mehsud always insisted on anonymity in interviews

It now appears increasingly certain that the thoroughly nasty Taliban Chief, Baitullah Mehsud, has been killed by a missile from a U.S. drone in South Waziristan, along the Afghan/Pakistan border:

There are growing indications that Pakistan’s most wanted man, Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, has been killed by a US missile.

A Mehsud aide reportedly confirmed that he had died when a drone attacked the house where he was staying. Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Quresh said the government was seeking “ground verification”.

Taliban leaders have gathered in South Waziristan to choose a successor, local sources have told the BBC.

The missile fired by the US drone hit the home of the Taliban chief’s father-in-law, Malik Ikramuddin, in the Zangarha area, 15km (9 miles) north-east of Ladha, at around 0100 on Wednesday (1900 GMT Tuesday).

Mehsud's camp in S.Waziristan where boys he bought were trained as homicide bombers

At the time of the attack, the Taliban leader was said to be on the roof, suffering from an illness for which he was taking medication, local people told our Peshawar reporter. Some who had reportedly seen his body said that it had been half-destroyed by the blast.

Baitullah Mehsud was buried in the nearby village of Nardusai, the witnesses told our reporter. Several of [his]relatives were also injured, local people told the BBC earlier.

Pakistan’s foreign minister told reporters in Islamabad that “to be 100% sure [of the Taliban leader's death], we are going for ground verification”. One factor complicating verification of his death is the lack of photographs of the Taliban leader.

When the BBC’s Syed Shoaib Hasan went to interview him in South Waziristan in May 2008, he found himself sitting down before a short, plump, bearded man, reluctant to allow his picture to be taken.

Pakistan’s interior minister, Rehman Malik, told the BBC that even if DNA could be recovered at the scene, the authorities did not have a sample from a male relative of the Taliban leader to compare it with.

This will be a tremendous boost to the Afghanistan/Pakistan campaign if true, although the death of the head of the Pakistan Taliban will prove to be very difficult to verify completely, as few images of him exist (some of the ones you see in the results of an internet search are fakes – and in any meetings with the media Baitullah will normally insist on being photographed or filmed from the back).

This man is behind scores of atrocities. He ordered them. He sanctioned them. He participated in them. Among those to which Baitullah is thought or known to be linked include the massive  campaign of violence in Swat Valley, brutal attacks in other Pakistani cities and he is thought to have been key in the Mumbai atrocities.

He bought young boys from desperate parents and trained them to become suicide bombers at a secret camp in South Waziristan

So, although this is good news, it does need to be tempered with the fact that he will surely be replaced quickly; and that Taliban violence will not be ended by his demise.

This coward’s victims were mainly the unsuspecting, the defenceless, women and girls. His death, if and when fully confirmed, should therefore be a matter for celebration – but not victory parties just yet.

[Main story: BBC Online]

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