.:: SAMAA - Taliban confirms Hakimullah's death

Staff Report

PESHAWAR: Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan has confirmed the death of TTP Chief Hakimullah Mehsud Tuesday. The Taliban leader was severely injured in a Drone attack in Shaktoi on the night between 13th and 14th January, 2010.

Though Mehsud was reported to be injured in the drone attacks, an audio tape released on January 16 revealed that Mehsud was alive.

A doctor was kidnapped from Hango for treating the TTP chief. Later, he was shifted from Shaktoi to Mamonzai.

According to Taliban, Mehsud died on February 9, 2010 while he was being transferred to Karachi. The banned outfit stated that their leader succumbed to his injuries near Multan. His body was then taken back to tribal areas.

FRESH SPECULATION OVER FATE OF PAKISTANI TALIBAN CHIEF

AGENCIES ADD: A new frenzy of rumours spread about the fate of Pakistan Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud on Tuesday, underscoring how tough it can be to get intelligence on militants seeking to topple the American-backed government.

Hakimullah was wounded in a U.S. drone aircraft attack in January. The strikes have escalated since Hakimullah appeared in a farewell video with the double agent suicide bomber who killed seven CIA employees in December in Afghanistan.

The CIA is likely to step up efforts to hunt him -- if he is alive -- after the Taliban claimed responsibility for a bombing that killed three U.S. special forces in Pakistan this month.

The latest rumours started with a Taliban official who requested anonymity telling journalists Hakimullah died of his wounds while being transported to the city of Karachi, a highly unlikely scenario because he would be more vulnerable to capture or killing outside his stronghold in tribal areas on the Afghan border.

A government intelligence official gave the same account.

Then the army spokesman and Interior Minister Rehman Malik, who has commented wrongfully before about the deaths of Taliban leaders, said they had no credible information.

"People coming from tribal areas are saying he is dead and has already been buried. However, I don't have any confirmation. I am unable to confirm it," said Malik.

The official Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq denied reports that Hakimullah had died. "He is fine," a Pakistani television station quoted him as saying.

The confusion must be frustrating for the United States, which watched Hakimullah appear on a farewell video with the double agent suicide bomber who killed seven CIA employees in Afghanistan on Dec. 30, raising the Pakistani Taliban's profile.

The drone strikes have killed some senior Taliban and al Qaeda figures but they have not eased suicide bombings which have killed hundreds of people despite a government offensive launched in October.

Last year, the interior minister said Hakimullah was killed in a Taliban power struggle after the death of its leader Baitullah Mehsud in a drone strike.

Rumours surfaced once again recently. Taliban militants issued an audio tape on January 16 purportedly from Hakimullah, denying he was killed in a U.S. missile strike two days earlier. "I am neither wounded nor dead, I am fine," said a man on the tape which a Taliban spokesman played over the telephone to a Reuters reporter. SAMAA/AGENCIES