[The News (Pak)] There has been no claim or evidence yet that Tahir Yuldashev, leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), died in a US drone strike in South Waziristan recently but a man claiming to be his bodyguard phoned the Radio Liberty in Prague on Tuesday to claim that the Uzbek commander was dead.The caller, who spoke Uzbeki language and claimed he was calling from somewhere in Pakistan, maintained that Yuldachev was killed after the death of Baitullah Mahsud in a similar US missile attack. The man who phoned Radio Liberty refused to identify himself. He claimed to have served as bodyguard to Yuldachev, who is also known as Tahir Yuldash, for a year in the past and quit the IMU as he wasn't happy with its policies.
The caller disclosed that an Uzbek militant, Abdur Rahman, had taken Yuldachev's place as the new IMU head. He said Yuldachev failed to recover from head and leg injuries sustained by him in the missile attack.
There was no way to confirm the claim made by the identified caller. The IMU or its allied Uzbek militant group, Islamic Jehad Union, hasnÃt commented on this claim yet. They would be expected to deny the claim, though the militant groups in recent times have been arguing that such claims are made at the behest of their enemies to provoke some of the most wanted militants to come forward and show their presence so that they could be tracked down.
Yuldachev, stated to be in his late 30s, became the head of the IMU after the death of Juma Namagani in fighting against the US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan in late 2001 or early 2002. There have been sightings of Yuldachev in South Waziristan, mostly in Wana area before he and his fellow Uzbeks were expelled by Ahmadzai Wazir tribesmen following intensive fighting a couple of years ago. He and his fighters then shifted to parts of South Waziristan controlled by Baitullah Mahsud.
Before moving to Waziristan, Yuldachev and his Uzbek militants were living in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and trying to destabilise Uzbekistan by sending fighters there across the Afghan-Uzbek and Afghan-Tajik border. Yuldachev has been producing videotapes to propagate the IMU cause against the government of President Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan. In his messages, he has also been criticising the US for its alleged anti-Muslim policies and praising the al-Qaeda and Taliban for resisting the Western powers.