Hakimullah feared dead in SWA drone attack
Friday, January 15, 2010
Foreign militants among 10 killed
By Mushtaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR: A CIA-operated spy plane on Thursday struck a compound of militants at Shaktoi village of South Waziristan where the Tehrik-i-Taliban, Pakistan (TTP) head Hakimullah Mehsud was believed to be present, but it was not clear if he was killed in the missile attack.
Ten people, most of them reportedly militants and their sympathisers were killed and seven others sustained injuries in the attack. A high-ranking government official said seven of the slain people were Uzbek militants.
Wishing not to be named, he said Hakimullah always kept Uzbek guards with him for protection and there were strong indications he was present at this hideout at the time of the drone attack.
I can 80 per cent confirm that he is dead but I am waiting for more credible evidence, claimed the official posted in the region. When reached by phone, Pakistan Army spokesman Maj-Gen Athar Abbas, who is also the director-general of Inter-Services Pubic Relations (ISPR), said none of the intelligence agencies had confirmed his death so far.
I checked with all our intelligence agencies but none of them confirmed his death to me so far, he added. The US spy plane fired two missiles that struck a house owned by one Muhammad Yaqub alias Auqabi at Shaktoi village of South Waziristans Srarogha subdivision.
Shaktoi is located on the boundary with North Waziristans Razmak subdivision on the one side and the Frontier Region Bannu on other side. Azam Tariq, a spokesman for the outlawed TTP, called The News by phone from an undisclosed location to claim that reports about death of Taliban leader were not true.
He said Hakimullah had been in the area to meet his fighters and discuss their ongoing fight against the Pakistani security forces. He claimed Hakimullah had already left the village when the drone hit the house in Shaktoi. He is alive and leading his fighters from a safe and secure location in Waziristan, he insisted.
However, senior government officials based in Miramshah, headquarters of North Waziristan, and Razmak town located on the border with South Waziristan, insisted Hakimullah was present in Shaktoi when the US spy plane blitzed the hideout of the militants.
We have been hearing that he and some of his fighters were hiding in the village where the drone hit the house, said a senior government official based in Razmak. Pleading anonymity, he said there were strong indications of Hakimullahs presence in Shaktoi but they could not collect any credible evidence of his loss in the missile attack.
Another official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, told The News from Miramshah that a team of informants had been sent to Shaktoi for collecting information on the ground. The area is remote and there is no communication facility to collect information. Our team of civilian informants may return on Friday, said the government official.
He said they had some intercepts of the militants but there was nothing about Hakimullahs death. Hakimullah, it may be added, is a cousin of the dreaded militant commander Qari Hussain, who describes himself as Ustad-e-Fidayeen, or master-trainer of suicide bombers. Both belong to Kotkai village in Srarogha, which is now under the control of Pakistan Army.
Hakimullah is on top of the list of the most wanted militants in Pakistan. He became the TTP chief after Baitullah Mahsud was killed in a US drone attack on August 5, 2009, at Zangara village in South Waziristan.
Baitullah was staying at the house of his father-in-law, Malik Ikramuddin, when he came under attack. For a long time Taliban denied Baitullahs death and insisted he was alive and leading the TTP.
However, after days of silence when serious differences emerged between various Taliban commanders over Baitullahs successor, the Taliban leader in Bajaur, Maulvi Faqir Muhammad surfaced and declared himself as the TTP chief and Muslim Khan as its central spokesman.
On December 14, 2007 when all the militant organisations operating in the seven tribal regions, Frontier Regions (FRs) and settled districts of the NWFP entered into an alliance and formed TTP, Baitullah was nominated its central leader and Faqir Muhammad as deputy head.
When Faqir Mohammad got himself briefly nominated as the TTP head, he claimed Baitullah was alive but too weak to lead the network due to illness. Soon afterwards, Faqir Mohammad stepped aside when Hakimullah was chosen as the new leader of the TTP.
Hakimullah feared dead in SWA drone attack
