Word: pakistani
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...Hakimullah Mehsud - the ruthless leader of the Pakistani Taliban who has unleashed a wave of suicide bombings around the country in the past year - dead or alive? The mystery deepens. In mid-January, U.S. and Pakistani intelligence reported that Mehsud may have been hit by a U.S. missile strike in the sawtoothed ranges along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, a claim that was at once disputed by the Taliban. Then on Tuesday, Pakistani TV channels, quoting an unnamed Taliban commander, reported that Mehsud had indeed been injured by the missile, and that he lapsed into a coma and died...
...there has been no sign of Mehsud since his appearance in October, only a continuing flurry of denials by spokesmen of the Pakistani Taliban - a slightly different breed from the Afghan jihadis - that their commander had died. On Tuesday, following the television broadcasts, a Taliban commander told the Pakistani daily The News that Mehsud had become too high profile, and was instructed to hide from the U.S. Predator drones that were raking the skies over the tribal lands in search of al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, thereby escaping another strike. Meanwhile, the Pakistani army admitted to journalists that...
...lawless border region after a video was released showing Mehsud posing with a Jordanian doctor, a double agent who on Dec. 30 blew himself up along with seven CIA agents and a Jordanian intelligence officer at a U.S. base near Khost in eastern Afghanistan. Since Jan. 1, say Pakistani military officials, the unmanned drones - the most feared weapon in the U.S. arsenal - have struck 15 times inside Pakistan, usually in remote mountain hamlets that Pakistani ground forces cannot reach. (See pictures of Pakistan's vulnerable frontier with Afghanistan...
...Some Taliban experts say that if Mehsud is indeed dead, his organization won't announce it until a new leader for the Pakistani Taliban is chosen - and that could take a while. "Very likely, there is confusion in the ranks," Talat Masood, a retired general and political analyst, told TIME. "The Taliban will keep on denying Mehsud is dead until the battle for succession is over...
...often a flag of convenience for other motives. Some joined the Taliban for revenge against Islamabad for past assaults against their tribes and for U.S. drone strikes. Others, especially along the Khyber Pass, are common bandits, while still others are sectarian, feuding with Shi'ite tribes. In general, the Pakistani Taliban are united in fighting against Islamabad, while the Afghan Taliban, with whom they are allied spiritually and often times logistically, are bent on killing American and NATO soldiers in Afghanistan...