 |
| |
WEEKLY
SECTIONS |
 |
|
 |
| Hakimullah Mehsud unveils himself to media |
|
|
|
Baitullah Mehsud’s commander emerges from his shadow
Sunday, November 30, 2008
By Rahimullah Yusufzai
PESHAWAR: By holding his first press conference at his makeshift base in the Orakzai Agency, Pakistani Taliban commander Hakimullah Mehsud has followed other militant commanders who cannot resist media coverage even if it increases risk to their lives.
Finally, the shadowy commander has come out of the shadow of his boss, Baitullah Mehsud, and introduced himself to the media and the world as some one important in the Taliban hierarchy. However, he hasn’t revolted against Baitullah Mehsud or parted ways with him. Rather, he still wants to be known as Baitullah’s lieutenant.
Until now, the reputation of Hakimullah Mehsud was that of a ruthless commander, who was always on the move. He was referred to as a mobile Pakistani Taliban commander, who would pop up in one or the other tribal areas and make his presence felt. Now that he has met reporters for the first time, it was confirmed that he is the Taliban commander for three tribal agencies — Khyber, Kurram and Orakzai. It also became known that he was a cousin of Qari Hussain, a much-feared Taliban commander who is believed to be the trainer and sponsor of suicide bombers.
Hakimullah Mehsud was described by journalists, who met him in Orakzai Agency, as a man in his late 20s. “Hakimullah is a lively man. He told us he could give us two gifts. One was the Humvee military vehicle that his fighters had captured during a recent raid in Khyber Agency on an Afghanistan-bound supply convoy for Nato forces. The other was a jeep that his men had snatched from UN employees in Khyber Agency,” recalled Shafiq Ahmad, a reporter for Geo TV in Peshawar.
He was among the 20 or so journalists, all except one working for television, who were invited to Hakimullah’s press conference in a remote part of the Orakzai Agency. They drove in five vehicles and were provided escort by armed Taliban fighters once they entered Orakzai. The journey was long and tiring. They had to drive through rough terrain and negotiate dry stream bed where no proper road existed. On the way back after an overnight stay, the journalists were turned back by the security forces at the Kohat Tunnel and had to drive through Attock district after crossing the River Indus at Khushalgarh to reach Peshawar.
During their stay at Hakimullah’s camp, the reporters observed that most of his fighters were fellow Mehsud tribesmen from South Waziristan. Being outsiders, the Orakzai tribesmen appeared to dislike them but were scared to say this openly.
The Peshawar-based reporters were also witness to a bizarre incident when Hakimullah’s fighters started firing indiscriminately at a plane that suddenly appeared in the sky. While at least one reporter wrote that the aircraft, which was fired at, was a US spy plane, others felt it was a passenger aircraft.
The plane flying at a high-altitude wasn’t hit and the Taliban fighters who had turned their Kalashnikov rifles and other light weapons at it laughed off the incident by remarking that it afforded them “a shooting practice”. Such is the carefree and irresponsible attitude of the young men who now make up the bulk of the Taliban force.
Hakimullah, who could aspire to succeed Baitullah Mehsud one day, made some strong-worded statements in his maiden encounter with the journalists. He threatened attacks against the PPP and ANP leadership for having ordered military operations against the Taliban. He made no effort to hide his group’s plans to disrupt the supplies for Nato forces passing through Pakistan and warned of a tit-for-tat response for the US drone attacks in the tribal areas. He claimed the Taliban could attempt to take Peshawar and other towns and cities “if the rulers failed to change their pro-US policies”. The young Taliban commander remarked that he found no difference between Bush and Obama. He also felt former president General Pervez Musharraf’s policies were still being followed in Pakistan.
Other claims made by Hakimullah were that Baitullah Mehsud was hale and hearty, that their differences with Pakistani Taliban commander for North Waziristan, Hafiz Gul Bahadur, had been resolved and that there were no Taliban in Karachi. He alleged that MQM leader Altaf Hussain was raising the bogey of Talibanisation in Karachi to hide his own reign of terror. He also denied Taliban involvement in the recent bomb explosions in Lahore.Obviously, there was no way to verify his claims.
About the rise in missile strikes by US drones in the two Waziristans, Hakimullah claimed the Taliban had apprehended and beheaded about 12 men spying for the Americans and guiding them to targets. Tough and blunt talk from someone who had never spoken to reporters before!
|
|
|
| Back
| Send
this story to Friend | Print
Version |
|
|
|
ISSN 1563-9479 
