U.S. prosecutors have charged the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, in the plot that killed seven CIA employees at a U.S. base in Afghanistan last December.
Mehsud, believed to be hiding in the tribal areas of Pakistan and head of the group known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, was charged with conspiracy to kill Americans overseas and conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction.
Here are some facts about Mehsud:
- Mehsud became the overall head of the TTP, a loose umbrella of more than a dozen Pakistan-based militant factions, in August 2009 after the death of his predecessor, Baitullah Mehsud, in a missile strike by a CIA-operated drone.
There were reports in January that Mehsud himself was killed in a drone strike in the Taliban bastion of South Waziristan near the Afghan border, but he later appeared in Internet videos threatening suicide strikes in the United States.
- Before his elevation as Taliban head, Mehsud was commander of about 8,000 militants in the Kurram, Orakzai and Khyber ethnic Pashtun tribal regions in the northwest.
- Mehsud's profile was raised after he appeared in a farewell video with the Jordanian suicide bomber, identified as Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi, who killed the CIA employees in Afghanistan on December 30.
- Believed to be in his 30s, he is considered more violent than his predecessor, but also quite media savvy. Mehsud and his fighters remain a potent threat, despite government air attacks, U.S. drone strikes and several army offensives.
- He claimed responsibility for a daring suicide attack on Peshawar's Pearl Continental hotel last year that killed seven people, including two U.N. workers. His fighters regularly ambush trucks taking supplies through the Khyber Pass to Afghan government and Western forces across the border.
- In May, TTP claimed responsibility for the botched bomb plot in New York's Times Square. Faisal Shahzad, the 30-year-old Pakistani American and the main accused who later pleaded guilty, said he had received bomb-making training and $12,000 from the TTP in Pakistan to facilitate the bomb attempt.
It was believed to be the first time that TTP was involved in an attempted attack in the West.
- More recently, the TTP claimed responsibility for attacks in Lahore in May that killed between 80 and 95 members of the minority Ahmadi sect.
- Mehsud works closely with Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a group linked to al Qaeda that has its roots in central Punjab province.
- He lost all his main bases in his South Waziristan bastion in a Pakistani offensive in mid-October. His whereabouts are not known but he is believed to have fled South Waziristan to seek shelter with allies, possibly in North Waziristan.
© 2010 Reuters. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.
|
