Abdullah Mehsud’s death won’t affect Taliban movement: Shah

Abdullah Mehsud, left, a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner, talks on his walky-talkie as his body guard looks on near Chagmalai in South Waziristan along Afghanistan border in this Oct 14, 2004 file photo. Mehsud, who led pro-Taliban militants in Pakistan after his release, died on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 when he blew himself up with a grenade to avoid arrest. Armed intelligence agents cornered Mehsud and three other men at the house of a leader of an Islamist political party in the southwestern town of Zhob, police officials said. (AP Photo/M. Sajjad/FILE)


Abdullah Mehsud’s death won’t affect Taliban movement: Shah

Staff Report
dailytimes.com.pk
PESHAWAR: The death of Abdullah Mehsud will not have a significant affect on the Taliban movement in Waziristan because the death of an individual does not matter when it comes to ideology or movement, former FATA security chief Brigadier (r) Mehmood Shah said about the one-legged Taliban commander who blew himself up in Zhob, Balochistan, instead of surrendering to Anti-Terrorism Force personnel on Tuesday.
Abdullah Mehsud was tagged the “most wanted man” by the government for kidnapping two Chinese engineers in October 2004, and had a Rs 5 million prize money on his head.
“He (Mehsud) was an emotional, but not a steady person,” Brig (r) Shah, who monitored the efforts for the release of the Chinese engineers as FATA security chief.
Shah said that Abdullah Mehsud’s death comes when the US has stepped up pressure on Pakistan by threatening unilateral action in its tribal areas. “We need to send a message across the world that the war on extremists is in Pakistan’s interest,” he added.
Abdullah Mehsud, a college graduate, lost a leg to a landmine while fighting the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan in 1996. He surrenderd to the forces of Abdul Rashid Dostum in December 2001 when the Taliban government in Kabul collapsed in the wake of relentless US bombing. He was sent to Camp Delta in Guantanomo Bay for interrogation, but was released in March 2004 and returned to a senior Taliban position after Nek Muhammad was killed in June 2004.
The government struck a peace deal with pro-Taliban militant commander Baitullah Mehsud in February 2005, but excluded Abdullah Mehsud from any such deal because he had tried to harm Pakistan’s relations with China by kidnapping the Chinese engineers.
Abdullah Mehsud belonged to a group of people both from the Al Qaeda and Taliban who only want to fight the coalition forces inside Afghanistan. Differences between Abdullah and Baitullah developed because the latter thought that jihad against Pakistani forces was as Islamic as it was against the coalition forces.