Hakimullah threatens more attacks on United States in a new video

ISLAMABAD - Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan chief, Hakimullah Mehsud, who was believed to have been killed in a US drone strike in South Waziristan in January, has vowed more attacks on the United States in a new video dated early April, according to the SITE monitoring group.

Although neither the US nor the Pakistani agencies had confirmed Hakeemullah’s death, who was sworn in as the TTP chieftain following Baitullah Mehsud’s death in a similar missile attack in August last year, he was widely believed to have succumbed to his injuries sustained during a missile hit in January.

“The time is very near when our fidayeen (soldiers) will attack the American states in the major cities,” Mehsud said in the Internet video alleged to have been made on April 4, SITE reported.

Another video allegedly from the Pakistan Taliban claimed that it was behind an attempted car bombing in New York on Sunday, The News reports.

Mehsud was reported to have been killed in a US bombing raid in January, but some reports last week quoted Pakistani intelligence officials as saying he had survived the strike.

“He (Hakimullah) is alive. He had some wounds but he is basically OK,” The Guardian quoted the official, who spoke on conditions of anonymity, as saying.

Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik had also confirmed Hakimullah’s death, however, he had failed to table any evidence to back his claims.

Hakimullah was hit within 72 hours after the release of a confessional video of Jordanian doctor Human Khalil Abu-Mulal al Balawi, who killed seven CIA agents in Khost on December 30, Malik had claimed.

The video, which showed Hakimullah sitting with the Jordanian double agent Balawi, was released on the evening of January 9 and Hakimullah was hit in a drone attack in Shakoti on the night between January 13 and 14, he said. (ANI)