Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud is seriously ill with diabetes and may even be in a coma, security officials and militant commanders close to the al-Qaeda-linked warlord said yesterday.
Local television reported that Mehsud, the head of the country’s umbrella Taliban organization, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), had died overnight — but officials and militant sources insisted he was still alive.
The shadowy Mehsud was accused by the previous government and by the CIA of masterminding the slaying of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in December. He has denied any involvement.
“Baitullah is sick. His condition is precarious,” a senior Pakistani security official said on condition of anonymity.
Other officials gave similar accounts of his health.
The father of a woman to whom Mehsud was recently engaged to be married — she would be his second wife — told friends Mehsud was “in a coma,” security officials said.
A senior Taliban commander close to Mehsud confirmed that he was ill but insisted he would pull through.
“He is only suffering from a bout of diabetes. He is under treatment but he will be all right,” commander Rahim Burki said.
Another commander named Razaq said Mehsud “needs medical attention two or three times a week and he is growing weaker.”
Mehsud is based in the lawless South Waziristan tribal area bordering Afghanistan and independent verification of his condition was impossible.
Pakistani officials said that about 80 percent of the more than 70 suicide bombings across the country since July last year were carried out by members of Mehsud’s own tribe.
In related news, Pakistani tribesmen supporting a government assault on Islamist militants near the troubled Afghan frontier have killed 13 Taliban insurgents, officials said yesterday.
The role of the Pashtun tribal fighters in the operation in the volatile Bajaur region has drawn comparisons with the so-called “Sunni Awakening” in Iraq in which tribes fought al-Qaeda militants.
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