Tribal sources confirm that the Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud has been killed in a drone strike, local TV channels reported Friday.
Reports said the Namaz-e-Janaza (funeral prayer) for the Taliban chief was held in a tribal village and the Taliban group will meet Friday to elect a successor to Mehsud.
Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik has told media that Mehsud had likely been killed in the missile attack on Wednesday, adding that he has some information, but they don't have material evidence to confirm it.
Pakistani officials on Wednesday had said one of Mehsud's wives had been killed in a suspected U.S. drone strike in northwestern Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal agency, part of the lawless tribal regions along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. Taliban and Al-Qaeda leaders are believed to be hiding in the area.
Conflicting reports about the death of Mehsud gripped South Waziristan following Wednesday's drone attack hitting the house of the father-in-law of Mehsud, killing four people. However, close commanders of the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief have rejected the reports as rumors.
Meanwhile, a senior U.S. official was cited as saying that there was a 95 percent chance that Mehsud was among those killed in the missile strike. But Pakistani army spokesman Athar Abbas cautioned that the reports of Mehsud's death are still unconfirmed.
In March, the U.S. State Department had offered a 5 million U.S. dollars reward for information on Baitullah Mehsud, who has been blamed for a wave of suicide violence across Pakistan, including the 2007 assassination of Benazir Bhutto, former Pakistani prime minister.
(Xinhua News Agency August 7, 2009)
