Word: baitullah
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...after Bhutto was killed, Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema, a senior official at the Interior Ministry, held a press conference, on Musharraf's instructions, to pin the assassination on Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed last August in a rocket strike in South Waziristan - a claim later supported by the CIA. According to the report, it was no secret that Pakistan's militants loathed Bhutto and her stance against Islamist violence. But the Musharraf government's "hasty" announcement, the report says, "was premature at best" and "prejudiced the police investigations which had not yet begun...
...militants' brazen capture of a town some 40 miles (65 km) from the Pakistani capital last spring, did more than any American finger-wagging to convince Islamabad that the TTP needed to be taken down. The U.S. helped by mounting drone strikes on TTP leaders, killing its founder, Baitullah Mehsud, last summer and possibly his successor, Hakimullah Mehsud, in January...
...That is a major victory for the Pakistanis and the Americans. The reign of terror of the previous Pakistani Taliban chief, Baitullah Mehsud, went on for two years before he was struck by a missile. Hakimullah Mehsud may have lasted only seven months. Whoever is next will have to keep glancing anxiously up at the sky, knowing that at any moment a missile could come streaking down. And that can only gladden his American and Pakistani hunters...
...While the Taliban deny that Hakimullah was killed, they had initially issued similarly fierce denials when his predecessor, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed by a drone strike last August. There are strong signs that a change of leadership may be under way in the ranks of the Pakistani Taliban. According to local reports, Hakimullah was taken to Mamozai village in Orakzai tribal agency, where he had first emerged as a Taliban commander and where his second wife lives. A doctor was summoned from nearby Hangu to treat his injuries. But well-placed sources believe Hakimullah died from his injuries...
...Pakistani Taliban appeared in disarray for those initial weeks following Baitullah Mehsud's death, with several reports emerging of a power struggle between Hakimullah Mehsud and the man who eventually became his deputy, Waliur Rehman...