Taliban chief 'killed in US strike'

The Pakistani officials said Baitullah Mehsud, who led a campaign of suicide attacks and assassinations against the government, was killed in Wednesday's CIA missile attack on the home of his father-in-law.

They said his body had been buried in the village of Nardusai in South Waziristan, not far from the site of the missile strike.

One official said he had seen a classified intelligence report stating Mehsud was dead and buried, but that agents had not seen the body as the area was under Taliban control.

Pakistan's interior minister Rehman Malik said "there is no confirmation to his death as far as the evidence is concerned. I repeat again, yes, the information is pouring from that area that he is dead".

Mehsud had al Qaida connections and had been suspected of involvement in the killing of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Pakistan viewed him as its top internal threat and has been preparing an offensive against him. The US saw him as a danger to the war effort in Afghanistan, largely because of the threat he was believed to pose to nuclear-armed Pakistan.

The missile strike hit the home of Mehsud's father-in-law in South Waziristan early on Wednesday. Intelligence officials said Mehsud's second wife was among at least two people killed. Mehsud's associates had claimed he was not among the dead.

For years, the US had considered Mehsud a lesser threat to its interests than some of the other Pakistani Taliban, their Afghan counterparts and al Qaida, because most of his attacks were focused inside Pakistan, not against US and Nato troops in Afghanistan.

But that view appeared to change in recent months as Mehsud's power grew. In March, the US State Department authorised a reward of up to £3 million for the militant chief and increasingly, American missiles fired by unmanned drones have focused on Mehsud-related targets.