A rare picture taken from footage in May 2008 of the leader of Tehrik-e-Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, who refused to allow his face to be photographedFrom The Independent:
Militant with $5m bounty on his head killed while receiving kidney treatment.
The Pakistan Taliban were meeting last night to choose a new leader after Baitullah Mehsud, Pakistan's most wanted man, was killed in a CIA-led air strike, dealing a major blow to the insurgency that has ravaged the north-west and the wild tribal areas along the Afghan border.
"According to my intelligence sources, Mehsud has been taken out," said Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Pakistan's Foreign Minister. Pakistani officials are carrying out "on-the-ground verification to be 100 per cent sure." The remote area in South Waziristan is a Taliban stronghold and difficult to access.
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My Comment: If I was a top Taliban commander, I could only assume that it must have been someone within the organization that betrayed Baitullah Mehsud's location to Pakistani intelligence and the CIA.
It was this aura of suspicion and lack of trust that inevitably led to the destruction of Al Qaeda in Iraq, and while it would not destroy the Pakistan Taliban, it will certainly make it very hard for their top commanders to now coordinate their strategy and operations.