PESHAWAR: Pakistani Taleban issued an audio tape on Saturday which they said was of their leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, and proved he had not been killed in a US strike two days ago.
Pakistani security officials said on Thursday that a US drone had targeted Mehsud in the South Waziristan region on the Afghan border but it was not known if he was among about 12 militants killed.
The Taleban said Mehsud had escaped the missile strike but one militant official said on Friday he had been wounded.
Apparently determined to show their leader was alive, the Taleban produced a tape recording on Friday which they said contained Mehsud’s voice. But there was no proof it was him speaking or when it had been made.
A Pakistani Taleban spokesman, Azim Tariq, telephoned a Reuters reporter on Saturday and played another tape over the phone.
A man on the tape referred to the rumors of Mehsud’s death over the last two days and said he was issuing the tape on Saturday through his spokesman. The reporter who listened to the tape said the voice sounded like the Taleban commander.
“I am neither wounded nor dead, I am fine,” said the man.
“Our enemies are being defeated both in the air and on the ground and are therefore using the media for fabricated propaganda,” he added.
The leader of the Tehrik-e-Taleban Pakistan (TTP) is the No. 1 enemy of Pakistan, a country the United States sees as a front-line state in its war against militancy, especially in neighboring Afghanistan.
The US special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, said earlier on Saturday he did not know if Mehsud had been killed in the Thursday drone strike.
“I’ve heard every conceivable version of what’s happened and I don’t know,” Holbrooke told reporters during a visit to the Afghan capital Kabul.
Earlier on Saturday, a suicide bomber attacked a military vehicle in the Pakistani part of the Kashmir region, wounding two soldiers.
The Pakistani part of the disputed Kashmir region had for years been free of Islamist militant violence until several attacks there over the past year.
The violence has fueled concern Pakistani Taleban militants battling the state are trying to expand their campaign from their northwestern heartland to stretch the security forces.
The Pakistani Taleban have stepped up bomb attacks in towns and cities since the military launched an offensive against their South Waziristan bastion in mid-October. Hundreds of people have been killed.
The man on the tape threatened more violence if the drone attacks continued.
