U.S. counterterrorism officials trust Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud is dead subsequent a missile attack last month, a senior intelligence official said Wednesday in the strongest gesture that Washington has offered about the militant's fate.
Neither Pakistan nor the U.S. has officially confirmed the death of Hakimullah Mehsud, who commands an al-Qaida-allied association that is blamed for scores of suicide bombings and is alleged in a deadly attack on a CIA base in Afghanistan late last year.
Hakimullah Mehsud's death would be the newest successful strike against alleged terrorists by the U.S. and its allies. The U.S. has recently stepped up attacks from unmanned aircraft in Pakistan, and a closer alliance with Yemen has led to recent airstrikes there. President Barack Obama tinted the mounting success of such attacks in his State of the Union address last week.
Baitullah Mehsud's death gave headship of the Pakistani Taliban to his deputy, Hakimullah Mehsud, a 28 year old with repute as a particularly merciless militant.
He has taken conscientiousness for a wave of blatant strikes inside Pakistan, including the bombing of the treasure Continental hotel in the northwestern city of Peshawar last June and the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore before that year. There is a $590,000 bounty on his head.
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