A senior Taliban source has confirmed that a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan killed the head of the Pakistan Taliban Friday.
Intelligence, army and militant sources have all confirmed that Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud is dead, and a senior Taliban source confirmed his death to Reuters. The Taliban source also said Mehsud’s funeral would be held Saturday.
The fatal drone strike, which has been the latests in a series of U.S. attacks aimed at Islamist extremists, took place in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan.
“We can confirm Hakimullah Mehsud was killed in the drone strike,” one senior security official told Reuters.
Mehsud, who is also believed to be responsible for the failed car bombing in New York’s Times Square in 2010, as well as recent attacks inside of Pakistan, was falsely and widely reported to be dead back in 2010, but those reports were proven false after he popped his head back up in Pakistan.
The strike hit the village of Dande Derpa Khel in North Waziristan and also killed 4 other suspected militants, according to two Pakistani intelligence officials. A senior U.S. intelligence official confirmed the strike overnight, saying the U.S. received confirmation of its success Friday morning.
According to the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, Mehsud was referred to as “the self-proclaimed emir of the Pakistani Taliban.” Mehsud is on the FBI’s most-wanted terrorist list, with a $5 million dollar reward for information leading to his capture. But that will obviously not happen, neither will the U.S. have the ability or opportunity to question Mehsud to obtain vital intelligence.
Mehsud has been among others on the top of the CIA Counterterrorism Center’s most wanted list for the December 2009 suicide bombing that killed seven Americans — who were CIA officers and their security detail — at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan.
The suicide bomber, who later was determined to be a Jordanian double agent, was brought into the military base to brief CIA officers on al Qaeda, and subsequently detonated an explosive vest when he made it inside of the base.
According to the NCTC site, Mehsud was indicted on charges of “conspiracy to murder U.S. citizens abroad and conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction (explosives) against US citizens abroad.”
Friday’s strike was a curious time for another US. drone strike, which has been at the top of Pakistani grievances, because the government having been trying to reach a peace deal with the Islamist militants to end years of fighting that has claimed the lives of thousands of Pakistani civilians and security forces.
As far as specific confirmation, two senior intelligence officials in North Waziristan told reporters agents sent to the site of the attack confirmed Mehsud’s identity, and two senior Taliban commanders said they had seen the militant commander’s body.
The Taliban commanders claimed that at least four missiles struck just after a vehicle in which Mehsud was driving entered the compound.
The newly elected Pakistani government headed up by Nawaz Sharif, who was just elected in May in large part due to the anti-U.S. drone strike promises, as well as his promise to end the years of fighting in the country’s northwest through negotiations.
