al-Qaeda Video Vows To Avenge Baitullah Mehsud’s Death

Pretty much as expected, al-Qaeda has released a new video vowing to avenge the death of  Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in an airstrike in northwest Pakistan on August 6th. The eight-minute video features al-Qaeda’s leader in Afghanistan, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, and bears the logo of the terror network’s media arm As-Sahab.

It was posted to jihadist websites on Thursday.

“Brothers, we inform you that we will avenge the death of Mehsud,” Egyptian-born al-Yazid states in the video.

He appears beside a photo of Mehsud. Cicadas can be heard chirruping in the background, suggesting the video was recorded outdoors.

“I say to the Islamic nation that even if we have lost Baitullah Mehsud there are thousands of tribesmen who are like him and who will take revenge on the Americans and their allies,” al-Yazid added.

Source

Implications of Taliban Leader Baitullah Mehsud’s Death

U.S. and Pakistani officials say they are heartened by signs of a rift between Pakistani Taliban factions following the apparent death of militant leader Baitullah Mehsud.
Mehsud was the overall head of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Taliban Movement of Pakistan, a loose alliance of 13 factions. He is believed to have been killed in a U.S. missile strike on August 5.

Following are some possible outcomes of Mehsud’s death and the impact on Pakistan, Afghanistan and Western countries that have troops there.

CHAOS IN TALIBAN RANKS

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told a joint news conference with U.S. special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke on Sunday that there was confusion, disarray and many reports of infighting within the TTP following the report of Mehsud’s death. Holbrooke told reporters traveling with him to Pakistan that Mehsud was “gone” and it looked as if there was a struggle for succession among his commanders.

A splintering of the Taliban would be a major coup for Pakistan, hindering the militants’ ability to conduct coordinated attacks, as the estimated 20,000 to 30,000 fighters under Mehsud’s command are subsumed by various rival commanders.

Mehsud’s fighters are already facing tremendous pressure after security forces cordoned off their strongholds in South Waziristan as part of a government order to the military in June to pursue Mehsud and his group. They are also facing regular strikes by pilot less U.S. drone aircraft, such as the one that apparently killed Mehsud.

Analysts say Mehsud’s death could demoralize his loyalists and could enable the government to exploit divisions by winning over moderate militants to isolate more hard-core elements.

via SCENARIOS: Implications of Pakistani Taliban leader’s death | Reuters.

Baitullah Mehsud Death Remains A Mystery

After last week’s jubilation over the purported death of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, it is now starting to appear as if he survived the airstrike that killed his wife and several of his bodyguards. Five very senior Taliban leaders have come out and said Baitullah survived the attack and would issue a videotape. Several tribal leaders and politicians with close ties to Baitullah and the Paksitani Taliban have also claimed Baitullah is alive.

The reports of Baitullah’s death have been largely driven by Pakistani intelligence, which is known to be suspect in past cases. Rehman Malik, Pakistan’s interior minister who is the source for many of the reports, just recently fell flat on his face when he insisted Swat Taliban leader Mullah Fazlullah was dead. The Taliban said he was alive, and Fazlullah later turned up on the radio.

Back to the Baitullah death story–a strange twist developed over the weekend. In a story too good to be true, Malik claimed that two of Baitullah’s potential successors killed each other in a gun battle during a meeting to decide on his replacement. When both Taliban leaders spoke to the media and denied the meeting even took place, the wheels started falling off Malik’s assertion. But that didn’t stop Malik, who insisted the two commanders prove that they and Baitullah are alive.

Read Full Article At The Weekly Standard

Baitullah Mehsud – Killed In U.S. Missile Strike

UPDATE: As is often the case in stories of this nature coming out of the tribal areas, the storyline has again changed. Several sources are now reporting that Baiullah Mehsud is dead. Pakistan believes Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, who has a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head, was probably killed with his wife and bodyguards in a missile attack, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Friday.

An intelligence officer in South Waziristan told Reuters that Mehsud’s funeral had already taken place, while Pakistani media cited their own security sources saying Mehsud was dead.

“He was killed with his wife and he was buried in Nargosey,” the officer said, referring to a tiny settlement about 1 km (half a mile), from the site of the missile attack, believed carried out by a pilotless U.S. drone aircraft.

Malik said: “We suspect he was killed in the missile strike. We have some information, but we don’t have material evidence.”

Source

UPDATE: Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud was not killed in yesterday’s airstrike in South Waziristan, US intelligence officials told The Long War Journal.

“Baitullah is alive,” one official old The Long War Journal. “We’re aware of the reports that he might have been killed and we are looking into it, but we don’t believe he was killed.”

The late night airstrike on a compound operated by Ikramuddin Mehsud, Baitullah’s father-in-law, in the village of Zanghra in the mountains near Baitullah’s home town of Makeen, killed Baitullah’s second wife and two other Taliban fighters. One of Baitullah’s two brothers was also reported to have been killed.

Witnesses on the scene immediately said that Baitullah was not among those killed. He reportedly visited his wife but left an hour prior to the attack.

Read more:

Original Post

US and Pakistani officials have said they are checking reports that the leader of the Taliban in Pakistan, Baitullah Mehsud, has been killed.

He is said to have died in a missile attack on the home of a relative.

A US official said there was “reason to believe reports of his death may be true, but it cannot be confirmed”.

Family members have already confirmed that one of Mehsud’s wives was killed when a US drone attacked her father’s home in South Waziristan on Wednesday.

The area is a stronghold of Mehsud, who has been blamed by Pakistan for a series of suicide bomb attacks in the country.

About 2,000 people have died in such attacks across the country since July 2007, when government forces besieged and captured a radical mosque in Islamabad from Mehsud’s loyalists.

Since then the Taliban in Pakistan have claimed responsibility for some of the worst attacks, but have always denied any role in the murder of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi in December 2007.

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Read previous article – Meet Baitullah Mesud Enemy Number One

Strike Kills Wife of Taliban Chief Baitullah Mehsud

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.

Source

Report: Baitullah Mehsud Paid To Attack Pakistan Nuclear Sites

According to a report by Ahmed Quraishi’s at the International Analyst Network,  India has paid terrorist leader Baitullah Mehsud nearly $25 million to mount a spectacular attack on a major Pakistani nuclear site. Government officials have not confirmed this report however; there is speculation that it could be at least part of the reason for the stepped up effort to capture Mehsud and quickly end his reign of terror in the region.

The report states that  Meshud has created a special force of nearly 500 recruits to mount the operation, a terror mission  intended to “shock the world”.  The purpose,  Quraishi states, is to create an event that will capture global media attention and convince the world of the need for military intervention in Pakistan.  Another objective he says, ” is to neutralize voices of reason within the U.S. government that believe Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is secure”.

While there are no specific details of when the plan was conceived, or whether the 500-strong force, now thought to be operating in smaller cells has been activated, Pakistan remains on a  high state of alert, according to the report.

Ahmed Quraishi told the NTARC,  “although the Strategic Plans Division (SPD) that oversees Pakistan’s nuclear and strategic programs is taking this threat very seriously, they won’t comment in public.  He  also added that at least one individual  claiming to be a resident of the tribal region has been arrested near Islamabad conducting what appears to be ‘reconnaissance-type activity” in an area designated as a military zone.

National Terror Alert has been unable top confirm this report through additional sources.

International Analyst Network

Meet Baitullah Mehsud, Enemy Number One

Meet Baitullah Mehsud Pakistan’s biggest problem, and the man who has taken his country of 176 million to the center of the West’s war on terror. Once described by a Pakistani general as a “soldier of peace,” he now carries a 50 million rupee (about $615,300) bounty on his head from Pakistan and a $5 million one from the United States.

Mehsud is earning the ire of the Pakistani military and Western policymakers alike as his movement destabilizes Pakistan, and the United States has destroyed several of his hide-outs with drone strikes in recent months.

His now-famous 2008 press conference — which came almost exactly a decade after Osama bin Laden called for the killing of Americans in a similar announcement just across the border in Khost, Afghanistan — was an extraordinary piece of stagecraft even for a commander with a certain penchant for public flare.

By incautiously exposing his location to a big group of journalists, Mehsud should have facilitated his own capture; that he didn’t serves as ongoing testament to the incompetence (and perhaps lack of will) of those who purport to pursue him.

Mehsud’s growing influence is of particular concern to Western policymakers because Pakistan represents the gravest general security threat to the international community — the prospect of a nuclear-armed al Qaeda. Keeping Pakistan’s nuclear weapons out of the hands of Islamist extremists is contingent on a stable Pakistani state, and Mehsud is the one man perhaps most capable of destabilizing it.

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Pakistans Next Fight – Taliban Leader Baitullah Mehsud

No one has contributed to Pakistan’s slide into chaos over recent years more than Baitullah Mehsud. From his base in the wilds of South Waziristan, the leader of the Pakistan Taliban has overseen the killing of more than 1,200 civilians and several hundred soldiers through brutal means, including suicide bombings, kidnappings and beheadings. He has been accused of masterminding the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in late December 2007.

In late March, Washington announced a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture, describing Mehsud as a “key al-Qaeda facilitator.” And over the past week alone, he claimed responsibility for five separate terrorist attacks, including the bombing of a luxury hotel in Peshawar and the killing of a vocal anti-Taliban cleric in Lahore. (See pictures of the hotel blast in Peshawar.)

Now Pakistan is taking the fight to Mehsud’s mountainous stronghold, ordering an expansion of its current offensive against Taliban fighters in the Swat valley.

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300 Suicide Bombers On Way To Islamabad – Baitullah Mehsud

300 suicide bombers are on their way to Islamabad, Pakistan and plan to attack the capital and certain local officials of foreign embassies there, Interior Ministry sources said.

The suicide bombers also plan to attack Rawalpindi and Lahore and are being led by five top Taliban commanders who are close aides of Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the country’s unified Taliban movement, according to the sources.

The commanders have left North Waziristan for Islamabad and would supervise the terrorist operations planned by Baitullah  Mehsud in these cities, the sources added.

Pakistan’s Interior Secretary Syed Kamal Shah confirmed the report, saying that  security measures had been adopted to thwart such  threats. The law enforcement agencies have planned counter strategies to deal with the situation, the secretary said.

Source

Baituallah Mehsud Claims Responsibility

Pakistani Taliban militant leader Baituallah Mehsud claimed on Saturday responsibility for an attack on a U.S. immigration center in New York state in which 13 people were killed.

“I accept responsibility. They were my men. I gave them orders in reaction to U.S. drone attacks,” Mehsud told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.

via Reuters.

Al Qaeda Planning Attacks On US From Pakistan – Obama

United States President Barack Obama on Wednesday said Al Qaeda was planning attacks on the US from its hideouts in Pakistan, a private TV channel reported.

Obama said the US would “chase and defeat the terrorist organisation wherever it is present in the world”, the channel said. Addressing a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London, Obama said US policy was clear for both Pakistan and Afghanistan and Kabul would not be allowed to become a safe haven for Al Qaeda. Read more

Taliban Leader Vows To Attack D.C. Says “Will Amaze The World”

UPDATE:Taliban Leader’s Washington Threat Is Credible, Analysts Say

Terrorism experts call Mehsud a “rising young star” who is linked both to the December 2007 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and the bombing last September that killed 54 people in the Marriott hotel in Islamabad — and they say his threat to carry out an attack in Washington should not be discounted.

“It should be taken seriously because [Mehsud] has ordered the deaths of many Pakistanis and Afghans and has a close alliance with Al Qaeda,” said James Phillips, a terrorism expert and senior research fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Heritage Foundation. Read more

Terrorists Attack Police Academy in Lahore Pakistan

Unidentified gunmen armed with assault rifles and grenades made a violent attack on a police training school in eastern Pakistan city of Lahore on Monday, leaving the city overshadowed with terrorism threats.

The intense fighting between Pakistan military and police and the gunmen started from 7:30 a.m. local time in the second largest city in Pakistan and lasted about eight hours.

Advisor on Prime Minister’s Interior Rehman Malik confirmed that four terrorists have been killed and the others have been arrested, but he did not give exact figure of the gunmen as well as the figure of casualties in the attack.

There is still conflicting reports on the casualties. Earlier reports said at least 25 people were killed and 90 others injured when the masked gunmen attacked the police.

A group of armed men huddled next to a minaret on a mosque rooftop leapt to their feet and shouted “Allahu Akbar”. For once it was Pakistani security forces celebrating rather than militants. Across a main road in the water-buffalo market town of Manawan, outside Lahore, police commandos fired triumphal “aerial” rounds. They had recaptured a police-training centre which militants had stormed eight hours earlier on Monday March 30th.

Lax security at the ramshackle academy allowed a dozen militants to rampage among 800 or more mostly unarmed police recruits. “The operation is over,” said the interior minister, Rehman Malik. He said that if security forces had not been on high alert, the toll would have been higher. “The attack was to dishearten, to demoralise the civilian security services,” said a local administrator. Terrorist attacks in Pakistan have become such frequent occurrences that people have grown used to asking when and where the next assault would come.

Cadets said that the militants burst onto the parade ground at 7.30am through the main gate and from the rear, spraying rounds from Kalashnikovs and hurling grenades. The terrorists’ faces were obscured by black cloth. Several were reported to have donned police uniforms. Policemen jumped from second-floor windows and stampeded over walls to escape. An armoured personnel carrier advanced then beat a retreat. A lull in the firefight ensued.

Just before 4pm commandos fought back, launching an assault amid intense gunfire. Spectators watching from the bazaar scuttled for cover during several minutes of crackle and blasts. It was a rare success and a joint operation by the army, paramilitary rangers and Punjab’s “elite” police squad. Even the smart, cravat-wearing highway police played a role.

Read Full Article

Gunmen Made Stand in Pakistan Barracks’ Top Floor

Blood-soaked bedding was strewn with blackened body parts in a police barracks in the Pakistani city of Lahore on Monday after the last of the gunmen who stormed the building blew themselves up.

The attackers, armed with grenades and rifles, launched an assault on the police training center during a morning drill session, shooting down recruits on their dusty parade ground.

They held off police and soldiers for about eight hours before the last three gunmen made a stand on the top floor of the three-storey building. They blew themselves up as security forces launched a final assault, police said.

At least eight recruits were killed and 89 wounded. Four gunmen were killed and three were captured, the government said. Rehman Malik, the Interior Ministry head, said the Pakistani Taliban were suspected of carrying out the attack.

“I can’t tell you what I saw and what kind of terror I went through,” 19-year-old recruit Zahid Usman told his mother by mobile phone shortly after the violence ended.

“They were not human beings. They were not Muslims, they were evil,” a sobbing Usman said.

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Fighters Loyal to Pakistani Taliban Leader Baitullah Mehsud Suspected

Fighters loyal to Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud were suspected of carrying out an attack on a police academy in Lahore on Monday, Interior Ministry head Rehman Malik said.

The militants killed eight cadets before being overwhelmed by a commando assault. Four militants died during the assault, while three suspects have been captured, officials said.

Malik told a news conference that one of the suspects was an Afghan.

Source

Rewards for Justice – $5 Million Offered For Baitullah Mehsud

The U.S. Department of State has authorized a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the location, arrest, and/or conviction of Baitullah Mehsud, the senior leader of Tehrik-e-Taliban (Taliban Movement of Pakistan).

Mehsud is regarded as a key al-Qa’ida facilitator in the tribal areas of South Waziristan in Pakistan. Pakistani authorities believe that the January 2007 suicide attack against the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad was staged by militants loyal to Mehsud. Press reports also have linked Mehsud to the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and the deaths of other innocent civilians.

In addition, Mehsud has stated his intention to attack the United States. He has conducted cross-border attacks against U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and poses a clear threat to American persons and interests in the region.

More information on Mehsud is available on the Rewards for Justice website (www.rewardsforjustice.net/mehsud).

The United States is determined to bring Baitullah Mehsud to justice. We encourage anyone with information on Mehsud’s location to contact the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate, any U.S. military commander, or the Rewards for Justice staff via the website (www.rewardsforjustice.net), e-mail (RFJ@state.gov) or mail (Rewards for Justice, Washington, DC 20520-0303, USA).

Government officials are not eligible for rewards based on information furnished in the course of their official duties.

All information will be kept strictly confidential.

Since its inception in 1984, the Rewards for Justice Program has paid more than $80 million to more than 50 persons who have provided credible information that has resulted in the capture or death of terrorists or prevented acts of international terrorism.

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