New Pakistan Taliban Chief

Chillingly for his rivals, Hakimullah Mehsud has been compared to Idi Amin

When early this month, a late-night air strike in the village of Zanghra in the mountains near Makeen killed Baitullah Mehsud, it left the post of Pakistan’s Taliban chief vacant. The mantle to lead the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has now fallen on Hakimullah Mehsud, a brash young commander with a reputation for pitiless violence.

Initially, Maulvi Faqir Muhammad, deputy commander of the group, had proclaimed himself successor only to later inform reporters by phone that Hakimullah would be the top terrorist. The volte face had something to do with Faqir Muhammad not having roots in South Waziristan, the heartland of the Pakistani Taliban.

Hakimullah Mehsud is from the Shabi Khel branch of the Mehsud tribe, as was the group’s former leader. He once served as a driver of the former Taliban leader and was considered very close to him.

Aggressive and violent, the younger Mehsud was widely considered most likely to succeed his mentor. Chillingly for his opponents, Pakistan Interior Minister Waliur Rehman Malik has compared Hakimullah Mehsud to Idi Amin.

It needs to be mentioned here that in the past, a long line of Al-Qaida and Pakistan Taliban leaders, including Ayman al Zawahiri, Abd al Hadi al Iraqi, Abu Obaidullah Al Masri, Adam Gadahn, Ibn Amin, Rashid Rauf, Mullah Nazir, Mullah Fazlullah, Faqir Mohammed, Omar Khalid, Hakimullah Mehsud, Qari Hussain and even the outgoing Baitullah Mehsud, have all been reported killed. But resurfaced later.

If the old leader is not convincingly dead, there is more confusion with the new leader not being convincingly alive. Pakistani intelligence officials are saying that Hakimullah is dead. Malik says Hakimullah is, in fact, alive but gravely injured, and that Taliban fighters were desperately searching for his younger brother as a stand-in!

From the looks of it, the US-led forces fighting Al-Qaida and Taliban will have to kill the same people, and their look-alikes, at least twice to be completely certain of their demise.

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Avinash Subramaniam