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Militant Islam Monitor > Articles > Predator Missile Launch Misses Pak Taliban Leader, Kills His Second Wife - Update Mehsud believed killed Predator Missile Launch Misses Pak Taliban Leader, Kills His Second Wife - Update Mehsud believed killedAugust 6, 2009
Predator Missile Launch Misses Pak Taliban Leader, Kills His Second Wife August 6, 2009 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - According to a report carried both by Reuters [see, http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5740WD20090805] and AP, the second wife of Pakistan's Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud was killed early Wednesday morning in a Predator attack launched in the terror stronghold of South Waziristan. Baitullah Mehsud, the intended victim, apparently was not injured in the missile launch which was directed at the compound of the father of Mehsud's wife - a locally prominent imam - located in the remote town of Makeen. It is not known at the time if the Taliban king-pin was in the area during the action. It is believed that a number of Mehsud's children were injured as a result of the strike. http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=mehsud8.6.09%2Ehtm ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pakistan's foreign minister says intelligence sources have confirmed that Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud was killed by Wednesday's missile strike in the South Waziristan tribal region. Family sources had immediately confirmed the killing of two people in the Wednesday attack including the wife of fugitive Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud. But, because of the remoteness of the Taliban-held district in South Waziristan it was not immediately possible to confirm whether Mehsud was also present in the house when the missiles hit it.
----------------------------------------------------- Afghan Taliban say unhurt by Mehsud death KABUL (Reuters) - The reported death of the chief of Pakistan's Taliban movement will not hurt the Taliban cause in neighboring Afghanistan, an Afghan Taliban spokesman said on Friday. Pakistani officials say they believe Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud was killed by a missile strike two days ago, in what would be a major coup in Pakistan's fight against the militants. In Afghanistan, Western countries have more than 100,000 troops fighting Taliban Islamist insurgents who ruled that country until being driven out in 2001. They believe the Afghan Taliban shelter and train across the border in Pakistan. The Taliban movement has its roots in Pashtun tribes which straddle both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier. But Mehsud's Pakistani organization is seen as mainly preoccupied with affairs on its side of the border, known as the Durand line after the British official who drew it during the colonial era. "The Taliban's jihad against foreign forces in Afghanistan will not be affected if a Pakistani Taliban leader is killed on the other side of the Durand line," Afghan Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said by telephone from an undisclosed location. "We feel sympathy for our brothers who fight for the same cause, but resistance against the Afghan government and its foreign allies will continue." (Reporting by Hamid Shalizi; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Jeremy Laurence) http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Afghanistan-Pakistan/idUSTRE5762LP20090807 ------------------------
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