ISLAMABAD, (Reuters) – There is a strong likelihood that Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud was killed along with his wife and bodyguards in a missile attack two days ago, Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik told Reuters.
“We suspect he was killed in the missile strike,” Malik said yesterday. “We have some information, but we don’t have material evidence to confirm it.”
ABC News cited a senior U.S. official as saying there was a 95 percent chance that Mehsud was among those killed in the missile strike. U.S. officials have visual and other indicators it was Mehsud and Pakistanis are now trying to collect physical evidence to be certain, ABC reported.
A U.S. official also told Reuters that there was reason to believe Mehsud was dead.
“There is reason to believe that reports of his death may be true, but it can’t be confirmed at this time,” said the official, providing the information on condition of anonymity.
The official would not comment on the circumstances surrounding Mehsud’s possible death.
The United States has placed a $5 million reward on the head of Mehsud, an ally of al Qaeda widely regarded in Pakistan as Public Enemy No. 1.
The attack in a tribal region of northwest Pakistan was believed to have been carried out by a pilotless U.S. drone aircraft at around 1:00 a.m. on Wednesday.
Neither the Pakistani nor U.S. governments confirm such attacks because of sensitivities over violation of Pakistan’s territorial sovereignty.
Intelligence officials and relatives had confirmed earlier that Mehsud’s second wife had been killed in the missile strike that targeted her father’s home in an outlying settlement close to Makeen village in the South Waziristan tribal region.
A relative of Mehsud’s dead wife had initially said the Taliban leader wasn’t present when the missiles struck, but rumours that he had either been wounded or killed refused to die down.
The stricken house is some two hours’ walk from Makeen, and Taliban fighters had cordoned off the area, refusing to let people enter, according to villagers.
A senior Pakistani security official said that aside from Mehsud’s wife, one of Mehsud’s brothers and seven of his bodyguards perished in the attack.
