Word: mehsuds
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...plotted the assassination, that too is clouded by what many see as either government incompetence or a knee-jerk choice of "usual suspects." On Friday, the Interior Ministery claimed that investigators had intercepted a telephone call that proved that Baitullah Mehsud, a leader of the Pakistani Taliban thought to be affiliated with al-Qaeda, had instigated the attack. Ministry spokesman Cheema released a transcript of a purported conversation between Mehsud and a follower, offering congratulations for a job well done...
...Bhutto supporters are skeptical of the reports' veracity. "We do not know if it is a genuine transcript or one created by the intelligence agencies," says PPP party spokesman Farhatullah Babar. Mehsud has become a convenient scapegoat in recent terrorist attacks, sometimes standing in when investigators turn up empty-handed. Speaking through his spokesman to the BBC, Mehsud denied any involvement in the attack, as he did when he was accused in the October 18 suicide bombing at a Bhutto rally in Karachi that killed some 140. Such denials, of course, are meaningless, but they do exacerbate rumors of government...
...Friday, a Pakistani Ministry of Interior spokesman identified another suspect: Baitullah Mehsud, a Taliban leader and an influential tribal chief in Waziristan, a restive Pakistani province on the Afghan border. Pakistani intelligence services intercepted a supposed conversation in which Mehsud congratulated those who carried out the assassination. "Fantastic job," reads the transcript released by the Pakistan Ministry of Interior, "[They were] very brave boys who killed her." But a spokesman for Mehsud told the Associated Press on Saturday that the militant was not involved in the attack, calling the allegation "government propaganda...
...Mehsud had been party to an agreement with the Pakistani government to cease his protection of al-Qaeda in his region. The Pakistani government has since then considered the agreement to have been broken. Says Frederic Grare, a former French diplomat in Pakistan and a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "Mehsud is a very convenient [person to blame]. He?s the bad guy in the trouble areas." He asks, "Why would Mehsud be willing to kill Benazir? Beyond the stated fact that she?s against extremism. How do [Mehsud's people] benefit from Benazir?s assassination...
...absolutely clear if or how Mehsud and Lashkar-i-Jhangvi link up. But both the Taliban and Lashkar-i-Jhangvi emerged from the two decades of fighting in Afghanistan, where eventually a Taliban regime would give refuge to al-Qaeda. Pakistani intelligence services were also active in Afghanistan, encouraging Muslim fighters in their war against the Soviet occupation of that country. One of the groups that emerged from this group was Lashkar-i-Tayyba or the "Army of the Pure," which Pakistani intelligence agents, after the end of the Afghan war, would redirect toward Kashmir and the Indian troops stationed...