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ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani Taliban on Saturday named Khan Syed Mehsud alias Sajna as its new chief, a day after a US drone strike killed its former leader Hakimullah Mehsud in the lawless North Waziristan tribal region. The decision was taken at a meeting of the Tehrik-e- Taliban Pakistan's Shura (Council), media reports said. Most of the members of the council were present in the meeting held at an undisclosed location though all could not attend it.

DERA ISMAIL KHAN/WANA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani Taliban fighters secretly buried their leader on Saturday after he was killed by a U.S. drone aircraft and quickly moved to replace him while vowing a wave of revenge suicide bombings. The Pakistani government denounced the killing of Hakimullah Mehsud as a U.S. bid to derail planned peace talks and summoned the U.S. ambassador to protest. Some lawmakers demanded the blocking of U.S. supply lines into Afghanistan in retaliation. "The murder of Hakimullah is the murder of all efforts at peace," said Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar. "Americans said they support our efforts at...

The leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, has been killed in a drone strike, a high-ranking Taliban official has told the BBC. Mehsud became leader of the Pakistani Taliban in 2009, aged 30, after his predecessor died in a US drone strike.

SNIPPET: "Al Qaeda commander continues to pose a threat to U.S. and South Asian security as Pakistan’s military and intelligence services look the other way” IPT News June 22, 2010 SNIPPET: “Top Al Qaeda commander Ilyas Kashmiri poses a major threat to U.S. interests both at home and abroad. Described by intelligence agencies “as the most effective, dangerous and successful guerrilla leader in the world,” Kashmiri heads Al Qaeda’s military operations wing. He figures prominently in two recent high-profile terrorism indictments issued in Chicago. But Kashmiri remains free in South Asia and in control of a renowned Al Qaeda terror...

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani intelligence officials say they have intercepted militant radio communications indicating Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Hakimullah Mehsud may have been killed in a recent US drone strike. The officials said Thursday they overheard Taliban militants in around a half a dozen intercepts discussing whether their chief, Hakimullah Mehsud, was killed on Jan. 12 in the North Waziristan tribal area. Some militants confirmed Mehsud was dead, and one criticised others for talking about the issue over the radio. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters. Pakistani Taliban spokesman Asimullah Mehsud denied the...

TTP Leader Hakimullah Mehsud Declares: 'From Now On, the Main Targets of Our Fidaeen [Suicide Bombers] Are American Cities' The first, which the YouTube page titled "Hakeemullah Mehsud is Alive and Healthy and Delivering news about Attacks on USA," is 2:17 long, and shows a still satellite image of North America with a still image of Hakimullah Mehsud. Speaking in Urdu, he states that the date is April 19, 2010 and threatens bombings in U.S. "states & cities"; as he speaks, explosions are shown taking place across the map. (To view this clip on MEMRI TV, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/2463.htm. NOTE: You...

Obama amputates our nuclear arms By: Charles Krauthammer ...snippet...Under President Obama’s new policy, however, if the state that has just attacked us with biological or chemical weapons is “in compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty,” explained Gates, then “the U.S. pledges not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against it.” Imagine the scenario: Hundreds of thousands are lying dead in the streets of Boston after a massive anthrax or nerve gas attack. The president immediately calls in the lawyers to determine whether the attacking state is in compliance with the NPT. If it turns out that the attacker...

Times Square Is Evacuated in Bomb Scare The scene at Times Square on Saturday night after police found a suspicious package inside a Pathfinder on West 45th Street. RAY RIVERA and KARIN HENRY May 1, 2010 A bomb in Times Square led to the evacuation of thousands of tourists and theatergoers from the area on a warm and busy Saturday evening, the police said. There was no explosion. “It appears to be a car bomb left in a Pathfinder between Seventh and Eighth,” said Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman. The device, he said, contained “explosive...

Pakistani police have arrested at least two people in Karachi, Pakistan. One of them, Tauseef Ahmed, is believed to have traveled to the U.S. two months ago to meet with Faisal Shahzad. CBS News has also learned that Shahzad may have spent at least four months training at a terrorist camp - raided in early March by Pakistani forces. The camp is affiliated with Pakistan's Taliban, the group that claimed responsibility for the botched attack in Times Square. Its leader Hakimullah Mehsud threatened, "The time is very near when our fighters ....will attack the American states." Prior to the release...

PAKISTAN, Islamabad : Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud, who was believed killed in January, vowed attacks on the United States in a new video apparently made last month, the SITE monitoring group said on Monday. Mehsud threatened to retaliate against the United States within a month for the killing of Islamist militant leaders, according to a transcript of the video.

The leader of Pakistan's Taliban movement, Hakim Mehsud, who was believed to killed last January, threatened to launch attacks on major cities in the United States. In a new video taken early in April, Mehsud vowed revenge against the United States during for the killing of leaders in the movement. Said Mehsud, who appeared in the video of nine minutes, surrounded by two armed men: "The time is near when the Fedayeen will attack major cities in the United States." He also warned Member States in NATO, and other U.S. allies to stay away from the latter and said, "You...

Qari Hussain Mehsud from Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan accepts the responsibility of recent Attack on USA with Great Pride and Utmost Bravery http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxgTdkoM0Bw

SNIPPET: "A top Taliban commander who trains children to become suicide bombers has disproved reports that he was killed during a US Predator airstrike in mid-January. Qari Hussain Mehsud, a senior lieutenant to Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan leader Hakeemullah Mehsud, spoke to a Pakistani news service on Feb. 14 to take credit for last week's deadly suicide attacks in Bannu." SNIPPET: "The Pakistani government claimed Qari Hussain was killed in the Jan. 14 US airstrike that targeted Hakeemullah in North Waziristan. But Qari Hussain confirmed he was alive when he contacted a Pakistani television station on Feb. 1...

The Pakistani government has confirmed that the country's Taliban leader died of injuries sustained in a U.S. drone strike in mid-January, setting the stage for a potential succession struggle that could further weaken the group. But analysts caution that Hakimullah Mehsud's death would not deal the al-Qaida-linked militants a knockout blow nor bring an end to attacks thathave killed hundreds of people in the past few months. A suicide bomber attacked a vehicle carrying tribal police near Pakistan's volatile border with Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing 17 people. The Pakistani Taliban continue to deny Mehsud's death, but the group used the...

Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mahsud was killed in a January drone strike, the group confirmed, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times. From the paper: "The death of Mahsud, engineer of a devastating series of suicide attacks and raids on markets, mosques and security installations across Pakistan in the latter half of 2009, gives the U.S. another major victory in its ongoing campaign of drone missile strikes against top Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders. "A drone strike last August killed Mahsud's predecessor, Baitullah Mahsud. Missiles fired by drones over Pakistan's tribal areas along the Afghan border have also...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Feb. 1 (UPI) -- If the death of Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud is confirmed, his successor could be a military strategist or suicide bomb instructor, a report says. Both Wali ur-Rehman, known as the chief military strategist, and Qari Hussain, chief instructor for suicide bombers, rank high on the Taliban hierarchy, The New York Times reports. While Mehsud's death could set off a power struggle within the group, the report said it may be only a short one. A brief succession struggle came after Baitullah Mehsud, the previous leader, was killed last August in a similar drone...

The head of the Taliban in Pakistan, Hakimullah Mehsud, has been killed in a US drone attack, according to Pakistan state television. The Pakistani Taliban are believed to have played a role in the suicide bombing of a CIA base in Afghanistan's eastern Khost province in December last year. More to follow...

The leader of the Pakistani Taliban release another audiotape denying that he was killed in Thursday's airstrike along the border between North and South Waziristan. “Today, on the 16th of January, I am saying it again -- I am alive, I am OK, I am not injured... when the drone strike took place, I was not present in the area at that time,” Hakeemullah Mehsud, the leader of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan said in a recorded statement that was played for reporters. Hakeemullah provided a specific date to confirm he was alive. “After the audio I released...

SNIPPET: "Hakeemullah Mehsud (left), the Leader of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan. and Humam Khalil Muhammed Abu Mulal al Balawi (right), the suicide bomber who carried out the attack at Combat Outpost Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan. The al Qaeda operative who killed seven US CIA operatives and guards, and a Jordanian intelligence official, was on a martyr's videotape with the leader of the Pakistani Taliban. Humam Khalil Muhammed Abu Mulal al Balawi, a Jordanian Islamist who was thought to have been turned against al Qaeda, appeared on a videotape with Hakeemullah Mehsud, the leader of the Movement of...

ISLAMABAD – The Pakistani army entered the last of three militant strongholds targeted by a major offensive in the northwest on Friday, as gunmen wounded a senior army officer and a soldier in the capital. The operation in South Waziristan, the main Taliban and al-Qaida sanctuary in Pakistan, has sparked a wave of retaliatory attacks that have killed about 300 civilians and security forces in the past month. The shooting in Islamabad was the third such attack in about two weeks. The militants hope the attacks will weaken the army's resolve as it pushes deeper into the isolated, mountainous region...