PESHAWAR, Pakistan, (Reuters) – The United States said yesterday the evidence was “pretty conclusive” that Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud is dead, while a senior Taliban commander denied reports of infighting among its leaders.
The White House had earlier said it could not confirm the Pakistan government’s claims that Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud had been killed by a CIA drone.
But asked yesterday if Baitullah had been killed in the attack, national security adviser Jim Jones told NBC’s “Meet the Press”: “We think so. We put it in the 90 percent category.”
“We know that there are some reports now from the Mehsud tribe that he wasn’t (killed), but the evidence is pretty conclusive.”
The comments add to a volley of unverifiable claims and counter-claims by the Pakistani government and the Taliban that have surrounded the reported death of Mehsud last Wednesday.
Western governments with troops in Afghanistan are watching to see if any new Pakistani Taliban leader would shift focus from fighting the Pakistani government and put the movement’s weight behind the Afghan insurgency led by Mullah Mohammad Omar.
Taliban commanders have said the government is fabricating reports of dissent within its ranks to promote division and undermine the movement.
Taliban commander Wali-ur-Rehman earlier on Sunday denied reports he had been involved in a shootout with a rival for the Pakistani Taliban leadership, Hakimullah Mehsud.
Wali-ur-Rehman, speaking by telephone from an undisclosed location to a Reuters reporter who had spoken with him several times before, also denied that any tribal council meeting, or shura, had taken place to decide on a successor to Baitullah.
“There are no differences. There was no fighting. We both are alive, and there was no special shura meeting,” he said.
Hakimullah would call journalists soon to prove he too was alive, Rehman said.
