By Rahimullah Yusufzai
Finally, the shadowy commander has come out of the shadow of his boss Baitullah Mahsud and introduced himself to the media and the world as someone important in the Taliban hierarchy. However, he hasn’t revolted against Baitullah Mahsud or parted company with him. Rather, he still wants to be known as Baitullah’s lieutenant.
Until now, the reputation of Hakimullah Mahsud 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 Mahsud 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 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 streambed where no proper road existed. On the way back after an overnight stay, the journalists were turned back by 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 Mahsud 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 on 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 bulk of the Taliban force.
Hakimullah, who could one day aspire to succeed Baitullah Mahsud, made some strong-worded statements in his maiden encounter with the journalists. He threatened attacks against PPP and ANP leadership and the security forces for having ordered military operations against 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 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 President General Pervez Musharraf’s policies were still being followed in Pakistan.
Other claims made by Hakimullah were that Baitullah Mahsud 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 the missile strikes by US drones in the two Waziristan, Hakimullah claimed 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!