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Pakistani Taliban leader appears in video after death rumours

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Islamabad, May 3,IRNA-- Chief of Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, who the American and Pakistan Interior Minister believed to have been killed in a U.S. drone strike in January, has appeared in a new video and sounded threats to launch attacks on major cities in the U.S.

“The time is very near when our ‘fidayeen’ will attack the American states in their major cities,” Hakimullah said in the video, which was posted on a website.

The video appeared hours after the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for Sunday’s attempted car bombing in New York’s Times Square. The U.S authorities said Pakistani Taliban were not involved.

Hakimullah threatened that his fighters will react against the U.S. in a month for the killing of “many of our great Muslim Leaders, (Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan chief) Baitullah Mehsud...and many respected brothers from Al Qaeda”.

“Our fidayeen have penetrated the terrorist America, we will give extremely painful blows to the fanatic America,” he said.

Hakimullah threatened members of NATO and other allies of the U.S. to leave it, saying: “You will face even worse humiliation, destruction and defeat than America itself.”

The US-based SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks videos and messages posted on the internet by Taliban and Al Qaeda, said the nine-minute video featuring Hakimullah was apparently recorded on April 4. The video bears the mark of Umar Studio, the media arm of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, it said.

In the video, the bearded and long-haired Hakimullah is seen flanked by two masked men wielding AK-47 assault rifles. Behind them is a banner with an inscription in Arabic. SITE said a two-minute audio message allegedly recorded by Hakimullah on April 19 had also been uploaded to the internet.

Hakimullah, 31, was reported to have been killed in a US drone strike in North Waziristan tribal region on January 14 but U.S. and Pakistani intelligence officials said last week that they believed he had survived the attack.

He was made chief of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan in August last year after his predecessor, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed in a U.S. drone strike.

State-run television had reported Hakimullah’s death and that he was buried in the Orakzai tribal region. However, the army spokesman was insisting that there had been no evidence to suggest that Hakimullah had died.