Islamabad, August 27: The Pakistani Taliban’s new chief Hakimullah Mehsud, who only managed to assume the mantle after reaching a power-sharing deal with his rival, has threatened to strike the US in revenge for the slaying of their leader Baitullah Mehsud.
Hakimullah, 28, issued the threat as he was declared the new central ‘amir’ (chief) of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), but with an estimated 25,000 armed militants and the organisation being under Wali-ur Rehman, who was named amir for South Waziristan, Pakistani TV channels reported.
The two top commanders had joined hands only because of the power-sharing deal, giving credence to assertions made by Pakistan’s interior minister Rehman Malik that TTP was plagued by infighting.
The two commanders conceded for the first time that Baitullah was dead, 20 days after US and Pakistani officials had said that he was killed in an American missile attack in Waziristan on August 5.
“Now the ‘shura’ (council) has unanimously appointed me amir of TTP… we will take revenge and soon we will give reply to this drone attack to America,” Hakimullah said in his first public comment after taking over TTP.
Under the power-sharing formula reported by The News, Hakimullah has been chosen chief of the TTP while Wali will continue to control the organisation’s affairs as he did in Baitullah’s time.
The paper said the infighting was resolved by letting Wali wield considerable influence by being chief of the TTP for South Waziristan, the birthplace and headquarters of the extremist group.
That the Pakistani Taliban were riven with dissensions was evident as, for the past 20 days, the top Pakistani Taliban commanders tried to hide Baitullah’s death. They had to concede when it became impossible to keep denying it any further, as the evidence mounted and the Taliban were unable to provide any proof that their leader was alive.
The News, quoting influential tribal sources, said there was no way the TTP chief could come from outside South Waziristan. “It had to be a South Waziristani and also someone from the Mehsud tribe as the dominant Pushtun tribe would not allow leadership to pass to anybody else,” the paper said.
–PTI–