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| -Obits- | |
| Baitullah Mehsud: The Obituary | |
| 2009-08-08 | |
| Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Baitullah Mehsud, who officials say may be dead, has been Pakistan's elusive public enemy number one, blamed for killing hundreds of people and colluding with Al Qaeda. Born to a prayer leader from Bannu district in 1974, Mehsud shot to early prominence when the US branded him an Al Qaeda facilitator. Pakistan and the US accused Mehsud of masterminding the 2007 assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, but while he denied that, he claimed responsibility for multiple deadly bombings. Washington came to view him as a mortal threat to Pakistan's nuclear assets, as Mehsud flexed the muscle of an umbrella Taliban movement that spawned an army of suicide bombers from his mountain redoubt in South Waziristan. No holding back: The US had offered a reward of $5 million for information leading to Mehsud's location or arrest. The Pakistan government placed a $615,000 bounty on his head Speaking to AFP last March, he threatened to attack the US capital in retaliation for US drone attacks and claimed to have created a wider corps of warriors to step up attacks on US and NATO forces in neighbouring Afghanistan. "Very soon we will take revenge from America, not in Afghanistan but in Washington, which will amaze the entire world," Mehsud warned in a telephone call from an undisclosed location. "The maximum they can do is martyr me," he added.
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| Posted by:Fred |