Conflicting Reports on Possible Death of Hakimullah Mehsud

A CIA drone strike on a suspected militant hideout today

killed 12 people in an attack aimed at killing the top Taliban commander in Pakistan. A local tribal leader said Hakimullah Mehsud was killed in the early-morning raid but the Taliban insisted he was still alive. Pakistani officials have not yet made any claim over his fate.

In the strike a pair of missiles hit a mud-walled compound which previously housed an Islamic seminary in Pasalkot village in North Waziristan where Mehsud, the chief of the Pakistani Taliban movement, was believed to be staying. Pakistani security officials confirmed Mehsud was the target. He had succeeded Baithullah Mehsud last year after he was killed in a drone strike on his house in South Waziristan last August.

Pasalkot, which sits between North and South Waziristan, has become the main sanctuary of Taliban fighters fleeing the military operation in South Waziristan. North Waziristan is also a major stronghold for the Haqqani network, an Afghan Taliban faction with links to al-Qaeda that many suspect was involved in the last month’s suicide bombing on a CIA base in Afghanistan which killed seven agents.