Taliban chief in Pakistan ‘killed by US missile’

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Baitullah Mehsud, named as Pakistan's "Public Enemy No 1" after launching suicide attacks in 2007 against the military and politicians, is
said to have died in a missile attack on the home of a relative.

A US official said there was "reason to believe reports of his death may be true, but it cannot be confirmed".

The rocket, fired by a US drone, hit the home of Mehsud's father-in-law in South Waziristan on Wednesday. Relatives have already confirmed that one of Mehsud's wives was killed.

Previous reports of his death have proved to be unfounded. Locals said that several of Mehsud's
relatives were injured. But Pakistani officials have since said they believe that, as well as the Taliban leader's second wife, one other person was killed.

Pakistani interior minister Rehman Malik today said his country's security forces believed Mehsud was among the dead.

"We suspect he was killed in the missile strike," he said. "We have some information, but we don't have material evidence to confirm it."

The United States placed a $5 million reward on
the head of Mehsud and correspondents say that his death, if confirmed, would be a major boost to its efforts to eradicate the Taliban in Pakistan.

South Waziristan is a stronghold of Mehsud, who has been blamed by Pakistan for a series of suicide bomb attacks in the country.

About 2,000 people have died in such attacks across the country since July 2007, when government forces besieged and took back a mosque in Islamabad from Mehsud's loyalists.

Since then, the Pakistani Taliban have claimed responsibility for some of the worst attacks, but have denied any role in the murder of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi in December 2007.