A top Pakistan Taliban commander has claimed to have replaced leader Baitullah Mehsud, but denied the warlord was dead as the succession yesterday remained shrouded in mystery and rumor.
US and Pakistani officials believe Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Mehsud was killed earlier this month in a missile attack by US drone aircraft in the lawless northwest tribal belt near the Afghan border.
Analysts and government officials said the death plunged the Islamist extremist group into disarray, with factions opening up as different commanders vied to lead the militia blamed for hundreds of deaths across Pakistan.
No one, however, has been able to provide any concrete proof of Mehsud’s death, while the Taliban deny the demise of the man Washington has branded “a key al-Qaeda facilitator in the tribal areas.”
But late on Wednesday, an apparent successor emerged — TTP deputy and battle-hardened former teacher Maulvi Faqir Mohammad.
“I have taken over the leadership of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. Two days ago our shurah [committee] held a meeting in which my leadership was endorsed,” 48-year-old Mohammad said by telephone from an undisclosed location. “Baitullah Mehsud is alive but he is seriously ill. In his absence, I announce, as vice-president of the TTP, the takeover of his leadership.”
He said two other senior Taliban leaders reportedly competing for the top post — Hakimullah Mehsud and Wali-ur Rehman — had endorsed his leadership.
Neither militant was available for comment yesterday, however, and analysts said Mohammad’s claim should be treated as an assertion of power as the succession battle raged on, rather than a concrete appointment.
“There is obviously a power struggle going on,” analyst and newspaper columnist Shafqat Mahmood said. “I don’t think that in actual fact he would have control over the Taliban movement, whatever is left of it.”
“He [Mohammad] was No. 2, and now that Baitullah Mehsud is dead he believes that he by rights should succeed him, but it is nothing more than a formal claim,” he said.
Mohammad, who hails from Bajaur tribal district rather than the Mehsud heartland of South Waziristan, also named Muslim Khan as spokesman for the TTP.
Khan had been the spokesman of the Taliban faction operating in northwest Swat valley, and would now fill the shoes of Maulvi Omar, who was captured by security forces on Monday in a fresh blow for the rebels.
Pakistani intelligence officials said Omar had confirmed that Mehsud was killed in a CIA strike on his father-in-law’s house on Aug. 5, but that claim has been dismissed as propaganda by the Taliban.
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