LAHORE: Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Hakeemullah Mehsud has survived an American drone strike in January and is alive, The Guardian reported on Wednesday. We'll just have to try again ...
A senior official with the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) told the paper that he had seen video footage of the missile attack on Hakeemullah, but other intelligence had since confirmed that the Taliban leader had survived. He declined to elaborate further.
“He is alive,' the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, was quoted as saying. “He had some wounds but he is basically OK.'
Mehsud was reported to have died in a drone strike in South Waziristan in January, but although Interior Minister Rehman Malik claimed he had been killed, the death was never confirmed by either US or Pakistani intelligence agencies.
The revelation comes in the background of a notification issued by the Punjab Home Department two weeks ago, wherein it warned the Punjab inspector general of police and all departments concerned about Hakeemullah's plans of hijacking civilian aircraft.
The notification could be a confirmation of Hakeemullah's survival and a blow to the CIA, which intensified efforts to kill the flamboyant young Taliban leader early this year after he appeared in a video alongside an al Qaeda operative who killed seven American spies at a base in southern Afghanistan in late December.