Pakistan, U.S. probe reports of killing of Taliban chief by missile

ISLAMABAD (AP) — U.S. and Pakistani authorities are investigating reports that Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud was killed in an American missile strike, officials from both countries said today.

If confirmed, Mehsud’s demise would be a major boost to Pakistani and U.S. efforts to eradicate the Taliban and al-Qaida.

Mehsud is believed responsible for dozens of suicide attacks, beheadings and target killings in Pakistan. He is allied with al-Qaida and has been suspected in the killing of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Pakistan views him as its top internal threat and has been preparing an offensive against him. The U.S. sees him as a danger to the war effort in Afghanistan, largely because of the threat he is believed to pose to nuclear-armed Pakistan.

The missile strike hit the home of Mehsud’s father-in-law in Pakistan’s South Waziristan tribal region early Wednesday. Intelligence officials say Mehsud’s second wife was among at least two people killed, and Mehsud associates have claimed he was not among the dead.

Pakistan army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas cautioned that the reports of Mehsud’s death are still unconfirmed.

“We are receiving reports and probing,” he said.

The U.S. government also is looking into the reports, according to a U.S. counterterrorism official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly.

The counterterrorism official indicated that the United States did not yet have physical evidence — remains — that would prove who died. But he said there are other ways of determining who was killed in the strike. He declined to describe them.

For years, the U.S. has considered Mehsud a lesser threat to its interests than some of the other Pakistani Taliban, their Afghan counterparts and al-Qaida, because most of his attacks were focused inside Pakistan, not against U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan.

That view appeared to change in recent months as Mehsud’s power grew and concerns mounted that increasing violence in Pakistan could destabilize the nuclear-armed U.S. ally, threatening the entire region.