US counterterrorism officials believe Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud is dead following a missile attack last month, a senior intelligence official said on Wednesday, in the strongest signal that Washington has offered about the militant’s fate.
Neither Pakistan nor the US has officially confirmed the death of Mehsud, who commands an al-Qaeda-allied movement that is blamed for scores of suicide bombings and is suspected in a deadly attack on a CIA base in Afghanistan late last year.
Mehsud’s death would be the latest successful strike against suspected terrorists by the US and its allies.
The US has recently stepped up attacks from unmanned aircraft in Pakistan, and a closer collaboration with Yemen has led to recent airstrikes there.
US President Barack Obama highlighted the increasing success of such attacks in his State of the Union address last week.
The US intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security matters, said the conclusion that Mehsud is dead represented the best collective information of US intelligence agencies. Since the attack, authorities have said they were growing increasingly confident Mehsud was dead. The official would not say what evidence the US had gathered.
The statement came after days of posturing by Pakistani Taliban officials, who first said they would prove their leader was alive and well, then reversed course and said they saw no need to prove it.
The attack by a US drone came after Mehsud appeared in a video alongside the Jordanian suicide bomber who killed seven CIA employees at a remote base in Afghanistan.
The bomber, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, said that he carried out the attack in retribution for the death of former Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in a US drone strike last August.
Baitullah Mehsud’s death gave leadership of the Pakistani Taliban to his deputy, Hakimullah Mehsud, a 28-year-old with a reputation as a particularly ruthless militant.
He has taken responsibility for a wave of brazen strikes inside Pakistan, including the bombing of the Pearl Continental hotel in the northwestern city of Peshawar in June and the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore earlier last year. There is a US$590,000 bounty on his head.
US drones are piloted remotely and can be controlled from local bases or from the US.
Though the program is officially a secret, the attacks are well publicized. They are Washington’s only known military response to al-Qaeda and Taliban militants along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.
‘NO SECURITY RISK’: The Railway Bureau reassured the public that the technicians’ activities were limited to technical guidance and did not involve sensitive systems The Railway Bureau yesterday said it had invited eight Chinese technicians to assist with an airport MRT construction project. The bureau issued the confirmation after an Internet user said Chinese nationals had entered the construction zone of Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport’s Terminal 3 project. They asked why “individuals from an enemy state” were allowed access to such a major national infrastructure project, which raised serious concerns over Taiwan’s industrial safety, sensitive systems and information security. The bureau’s Northern Region Engineering Branch Office said subcontractor Taiwan Handle Industrial Co (台灣手把工業) of the Taoyuan airport MRT’s “Contract No. CU05 Project A14 Station Civil, MEP &
The National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology yesterday showcased its locally developed variants of the Vision 60 robotic patrol dog, which it plans to deploy on the nation’s outlying territories in the South China Sea. The variants were produced under the Joint Lab project — created by the institute and domestic companies — and assembled with domestically produced motors, lenses and artificial intelligence (AI) systems alongside licensed tech from the US, Missile and Rocket Systems Research Division deputy director Jen Kuo-kang (任國光) told the media event at a military base in Taipei’s Dazhi (大直) area. Taiwan has built up its strengths
NOT IMMEDIATE: Taiwan has a chance to appeal the proposed 10 percent tariff before it starts, while other countries face a 12.5 percent tariff from the trade office Taiwan is among 60 economies determined by the US to have failed to impose or enforce a ban on the importation of goods produced with forced labor, according to a notice released on Tuesday by the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), which proposed imposing an additional 10 percent or more tariff on them. The USTR in a statement said that following an investigation, it had determined under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 that the failure of the 60 economies to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor is
TIT-FOR-TAT: The US allegedly revoked the visa of a Chinese national working at Xinhua News Agency in the US in response to Beijing’s expulsion of Vivian Wang The Presidential Office yesterday condemned China for expelling a New York Times correspondent from Beijing following the newspaper’s interview with President William Lai (賴清德), saying the move highlighted Beijing’s suppression of press freedom and its threat to international news media. Taiwan has noted a series of recent incidents in which Beijing used similar tactics to “threaten and pressure international media outlets and journalists,” Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said in a statement. “This concerns not only press freedom and freedom of expression, but also the safety of journalists, and Taiwan and relevant partners are paying close attention to the situation,” she
RSS