What the Death of Pakistan's Public Enemy No. 1 Means

If Baitullah Mehsud is really dead, it's great news for Pakistan and the United States, and bad news for the militants.

BY IMTIAZ GUL | AUGUST 7, 2009

A Hellfire missile, fired from a CIA-operated drone an hour past midnight Wednesday, Pakistan time, tore Baitullah Mehsud's body into two pieces. He was said to be on a glucose drip -- dispensed by a local paramedic named Saeedullah -- on the rooftop of his in-laws' house in Zangara, South Waziristan, when hell rained down and took several lives, including that of Mehsud and his second wife.

If this eyewitness account -- narrated on the phone by an intelligence operative to journalists based in Peshawar, the provincial capital, were true, then the icon of al Qaeda militants -- ready to kill and die for their cause -- is gone. Back in its December 2007 annual issue, the Time magazine had listed Baitullah Mehsud among "its 100 most influential individuals" around the globe. By then, Mehsud had already declared jihad on the West.

"Our main aim is to finish Britain and the United States and to crush the pride of the non-Muslims. We pray to God to give us the ability to destroy the White House, New York, and London. Very soon, we will be witnessing jihad's miracles," the diminutive militant told the Doha-based Al Jazeera satellite channel in January 2008.

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The radical maverick had carried a $5 million bounty after the U.S. State Department described him as a clear threat to American interests in the region. He stunned many in and outside the country on March 31, 2009, when he owned up to a commando raid and the ensuing bloody siege of a police training academy a day earlier on the outskirts of the eastern city of Lahore. The roughly eight-hour long operation resulted in the deaths of eight policemen and four attackers. Four were arrested.

"We did it as a retaliation for U.S. missile strikes off drones inside the Pakistani territory," said Mehsud, the first such admission he had made personally.

AFP/Getty Images

 

Imtiaz Gul is the head of the independent Centre for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad and the author of the forthcoming book The Al Qaeda Connection: Terror in Tribal Areas.

SAAD KHAN

10:09 AM ET

August 10, 2009

Taliban are still strong

Whether Baitullah is dead, alive or terminally ill, Taliban are still strong in Pakistan. Thanks to the half-heart efforts of Pakistani military, they are strengthening their positions. A sizable number of Pakistani intelligence officers still support Taliban as long as they continue their anti-American activities. At the same time, they are interested in grasping as many billions from America as possible. This double game can't continue for long and the US should seriously tackle this issue.
http://proamericanmuslims.wordpress.com/

 

CHRISWALKER

1:14 PM ET

August 11, 2009

Why you're so wrong about this:

Your entire argument relies on some unnamed "analyst" who "opined" that this somehow degrades the command structure of the Taliban in Pakistan - and most importantly - you rest on the assumption that this command structure is tantamount to disruptive confrontation with Pakistan's military, U.S. and NATO forces.

To the extent that an organized and hierarchical militia makes things easier for the U.S. military (and others) to target and fight, de-centralized, open-source (ad hoc), rag tag bands have actually been more effective in foiling U.S. and NATO efforts at stabilizing Afghanistan than any standing army has. The guerrilla nature of insurgencies like the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and their relative discord with one another have immensely confused the official security and intelligence apparati of their foes. The disorder resultant of Baitullah and now Hakimullah's deaths will work to further embolden the TTP and raise the stakes for creating more disorder in retaliation.

It also works in elongating the extensive list of reasons that young boys should be coaxed out of madrasahs to defend Islam from the "imperialist West" by taking up their cause.

Your piece totally ignores these and countless other realities.

To the cynical observer, these deaths are only worth anything to the people in the Western military and intelligence services who's jobs are contingent upon some indicator of "success." Pakistan is no safer today than on Tuesday and no further away from being on the brink of being a collapsing state - thanks in part to groups like these. Afghanistan is no closer to having a violence-free election, and the peoples inhabiting these lands are no freer as a result of his death. People eagerly are waiting to step in his place and despite the short term power struggles, the West, in the eyes of too many, is still the enemy. Is skill set was not unique to him and indeed, there are parties with vested interests in the survival of his organization.