Stratfor: Mehsud's Death Confirmed

From Strat­for:

Pak­istani Intel­li­gence sources have con­firmed Bait­ul­lah Mehsud’s death, Pak­istani For­eign Min­is­ter Shah Mehmood Qureshi said Aug. 7, Dawn News reported. Bait­ul­lah Mehsud, the leader of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pak­istan (TTP) insur­gent group, along with one of his wives and six body­guards were killed in a mis­sile attack Aug. 5. Reuters reported that the TTP lead­er­ship called an advi­sory coun­cil meet­ing or “shura,” to choose a suc­ces­sor, and among those being con­sid­ered are Mehsud’s spokesman Hakimul­lah, Azmat­ul­lah and Wali Ur Rehman.

So far, no one has admit­ted to see­ing his body, how­ever, although the Pak­ista­nis seem pretty con­fi­dent on this.

One offi­cial said he had seen a clas­si­fied intel­li­gence report stat­ing Mehsud was dead and buried, but that agents had not seen the body as the area was under Tal­iban control.

Inte­rior Min­is­ter Rehman Malik ear­lier said he could con­firm the death of Mehsud’s wife but not of the Tal­iban leader him­self, although infor­ma­tion pointed in that direction.

‘I can con­firm to the extent that his wife is dead, and prob­a­bly one of his broth­ers, but we do not have any…evidence that he’s dead,’ Malik told reporters out­side Par­lia­ment. But he added: ‘Yes, lot of infor­ma­tion is pour­ing in from that area that he’s dead, but I’m unable to con­firm unless I have solid evidence.’

A secu­rity offi­cial, who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymity because of the sen­si­tiv­ity of the issue, said ‘about 70 per cent’ of the infor­ma­tion pointed to Mehsud’s being dead, but author­i­ties had not yet been able to con­firm this. He said author­i­ties had not recov­ered a body.

I’m cur­rently try­ing to get some infor­ma­tion from the Pak­ista­nis. The New York Times seems to have some good info.