The United States is "90 per cent" certain that Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, was killed in a missile attack last Wednesday. The assessment came from President Obama's national security adviser, James Jones, in a television interview on Sunday. "Authorities still lack definitive proof of Mehsud's death, as they do not have the body and so have been unable to carry out a DNA test," The Guardian reported. "The tribal belt is controlled by heavily armed fighters and the government has virtually no control. "But officials, citing intelligence intercepts and other sources, were increasingly confident the Taliban warlord had been killed. An intelligence official said there was 'no doubt' about Mehsud's fate, while the interior minister challenged critics to produce video proof he was alive. "Today, a rival Taliban commander, Saifullah Mehsud, gave a television interview in which he said: 'It is a proven fact that Baitullah Mehsud has been killed by a drone and buried.' The bearded militant was surrounded by gunmen, with a pistol in his lap and his leg in a plaster cast." The Daily Telegraph said: "Mehsud's deputy, Noor Said, claimed a video would prove the commander was alive. "Taliban also rejected reports from Pakistan intelligence officials that the movement had been racked by in-fighting in the wake of the strike with a shoot out between rivals to succeed Mehsud. "Wali-ur-Rehman, denied reports he had been involved in a shoot-out with Hakimullah Mehsud for the Pakistani Taliban leadership." Amid such conflicting reports, there is nevertheless a widening consensus among commentators that the Taliban leader has in fact been killed. "A Hellfire missile, fired from a CIA-operated drone an hour past midnight Wednesday, Pakistan time, tore Baitullah Mehsud's body into two pieces. He was said to be on a glucose drip - dispensed by a local paramedic named Saeedullah - on the rooftop of his in-laws' house in Zangara, South Waziristan, when hell rained down and took several lives, including that of Mehsud and his second wife," wrote Imtiaz Gul in Foreign Policy. "If this eyewitness account - narrated on the phone by an intelligence operative to journalists based in Peshawar, the provincial capital, were true, then the icon of al Qa'eda militants - ready to kill and die for their cause - is gone. Back in its December 2007 annual issue, the Time magazine had listed Baitullah Mehsud among 'its 100 most influential individuals' around the globe. By then, Mehsud had already declared jihad on the West. " 'Our main aim is to finish Britain and the United States and to crush the pride of the non-Muslims. We pray to God to give us the ability to destroy the White House, New York, and London. Very soon, we will be witnessing jihad's miracles,' the diminutive militant told the Doha-based Al Jazeera satellite channel in January 2008.[...] "The stocky Baitullah, 36, was barely 5.2 feet tall with a less-than-swashbuckling appearance. But he radiated a certain charisma that appealed to people much taller and stronger in physique. Born into a poor ethnic Pashtoon family in the Makeen village of South Waziristan, Mehsud also participated in the anti-Soviet Afghan jihad and later assisted the Afghan Taliban in their fight against the Northern Alliance. During his years of fighting in Afghanistan, he drew inspiration from Mullah Omar, the Afghan Taliban chief, and of course the likes of Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri." The Asia Times Pakistan Bureau Chief, Syed Saleem Shahzad, wrote: "Baitullah began as a poor foot soldier in the Taliban's rag-tag army in Afghanistan. He is the son of a minor cleric but dropped out of a madrassa (Islamic seminary). "Arabs such as the head of al Qa'eda in Pakistan, Khalid Habib, and al Qa'eda's best trainer, Abu Laith al-Libbi, took the ambitious Baitullah under their wing, showering him with off-road vehicles and loads of weapons. And importantly, Qari Tahir Yuldashev, the chief of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, placed his 2,500 hardened fighters at Baitullah's discretion. Baitullah lived with the Uzbek, who became his biggest ideological inspiration. "A military crackdown against Pakistani jihadi outfits after the 2002 failed assassination attempt on then-president General Pervez Musharraf caused an exodus of militants to the tribal areas. Prominent among them were leading jihadi Qari Zafar and veteran Kashmiri guerrilla commander Ilyas Kashmiri. "They were all given protection by Baitullah, along with famed Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah, and Baitullah was on his way to becoming one of the most influential people in the region. "By 2007, Baitullah was sending hundreds of groups of men a year into Helmand, making him the number one contributor in fueling the Taliban-led insurgency against foreign forces in southwestern Afghanistan. He also provided suicide bombers for al Qa'eda's missions in Pakistan and generated funds by using his tribal bandits." Newsweek reported: "With Mehsud gone, al Qa'eda could be in trouble. 'Mehsud's death means the tent sheltering al Qa'eda has collapsed,' an Afghan Taliban intelligence officer who had met Mehsud many times tells Newsweek. 'Without a doubt he was al Qa'eda's number one guy in Pakistan,' adds Mahmood Shah, a retired Pakistani Army brigadier and a former chief of the Federally Administered Tribal Area, or Fata, Mehsud's base. "Mehsud, whom Shah describes as being a short, slightly overweight Type-A diabetic in his late 30s, proved to be an even better host for al Qa'eda than Omar. When Omar was clearly controlling the Taliban before September 11, 2001, he was believed to have been surprised by bin Laden's attack on New York and Washington. Mehsud, by contrast, didn't just let bin Laden operate in his domain; he cultivated a symbiotic relationship with al Qa'eda. Bin Laden provided Mehsud and his allies with funds, al Qa'eda's operational planners, and ideological and military experts (some of them veterans of the first Iraq War). Bin Laden's operatives quickly became key players in Mehsud's deadly insurgent operation on both sides of the border. In Afghanistan, they furnished fighters and suicide bombers to attack US, Nato, and Afghan troops. In Pakistan, gunmen and suicide bombers were sent to hit Pakistani security forces, military, police, and civilian targets. Mehsud got so caught up in al Qa'eda's rhetoric that the normally quiet commander threatened in a statement last March, which few took seriously, to extend his operations to include 'an attack in Washington that would amaze everyone'. "Al Qa'eda's expertise was crucial to Mehsud's extensive network of tribal area training camps that teach raw recruits guerrilla tactics and form hundreds of young men, some barely teenagers, into suicide bombers. Thanks partly to al Qa'eda's assistance, Mehsud ran a 'suicide-bomber-on-demand' operation, providing them to allies for use in Afghanistan. Pakistani officials estimate that 90 per cent of the scores of suicide and terrorist attacks inside Pakistan over the past two years can be traced back to Mehsud's South Waziristan stronghold." In an editorial, Pakistan's Dawn newspaper said: "Mehsud was larger than life and his death is a milestone in Pakistan's fight against militancy, but the ground zero of militancy will not stop being a threat simply because of his elimination. Already, successors are being talked about for Mehsud's group, while other powerful warlords like Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Siraj Haqqani in North Waziristan Agency have the capability to launch a violent new phase of militancy. "Clearly, there is a need to press ahead with military operations to degrade the militant networks in the Waziristan agencies. However, it is equally clear that the military option alone will not yield a solution to the Waziristan conundrum. Unlike Swat, Fata is home to warrior tribes, tribes that react very badly to outside 'interference'. And, also unlike Swat, the militants cannot simply be pushed out nor are they easily separable from the local population. So, in the scenario where the state cannot afford to 'occupy' the Waziristan agencies with troops and 'impose' its writ there, long-term peace can only be achieved by keeping the door to talks with the local tribes open. "The problem with peace deals struck with militant groups thus far has not been that they have been attempted at all, but the circumstances in which they have been attempted. Invariably, the state has done so from a position of weakness and ceded too much and got too little in return. The deals have been struck largely in the hope that in return for leaving the militants alone, they will leave Pakistan and its people alone. But, knowing the ideology of many of the militants involved in such deals, there was always a slim possibility of that occurring. Instead, what the country's leadership needs to do is find people among the tribes that it can do business with and offer them a set of incentives to reject militancy."
pwoodward@thenational.ae