Word: mehsud
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...militants' brazen capture of a town some 40 miles (65 km) from the Pakistani capital last spring, did more than any American finger-wagging to convince Islamabad that the TTP needed to be taken down. The U.S. helped by mounting drone strikes on TTP leaders, killing its founder, Baitullah Mehsud, last summer and possibly his successor, Hakimullah Mehsud, in January...
...drone strike earlier this month that either killed or severely wounded Hakimullah Mehsud, head of the Pakistani Taliban. Knocking Mehsud out of commission may have been the favor Islamabad was repaying with the capture of Baradar and three Afghan Taliban "shadow" governors who were operating out of Pakistan. Mehsud had masterminded a suicide-bombing campaign that hit schools, police stations, bazaars and garrisons across the country, killing hundreds. (On Tuesday, another Taliban leader, Mullah Abdul Qadir, ex-governor of Afghanistan's Nangahar province, was reportedly arrested, though neither Pakistan nor the Taliban spokesman would confirm the capture.) (See pictures...
...Last year, more than a thousand Pakistanis were killed in 80 Taliban-orchestrated suicide attacks at volleyball games, pilgrimages, police academies, army bases and more. In response, Pakistan's army swept into the northern and southern ends of the tribal belt, particularly the Mehsud tribes' homeland in South Waziristan. With the Mehsuds flushed out of their stronghold, it is easier for the Drones to pick them off. "Because of improved cooperation between the American and Pakistani intelligence services," says analyst Masood, "the leadership of the Pakistani Taliban can't hide itself as effectively." And since the Mehsud tribesmen...
...Agreeing on a successor to Mehsud, who has led the organization for less than a year, won't be easy, but a Taliban commander quoted in the news said it would probably be Waliur Rehman, a high-ranking fellow Mehsud tribesman from South Waziristan. But he may not be acceptable to other Taliban fighters scattered across the lawless borderlands. Although various regional commanders are united under the organization Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, their reasons for becoming Taliban are varied. The ideology of replacing the pro-Western Islamabad government with an al-Qaeda-inspired Islamic caliphate is often a flag...
...That is a major victory for the Pakistanis and the Americans. The reign of terror of the previous Pakistani Taliban chief, Baitullah Mehsud, went on for two years before he was struck by a missile. Hakimullah Mehsud may have lasted only seven months. Whoever is next will have to keep glancing anxiously up at the sky, knowing that at any moment a missile could come streaking down. And that can only gladden his American and Pakistani hunters...