The death of the head of the Taliban in Pakistan appears to have confused the insurgency as much as it has the rest of the world.
In May last year, in a schoolroom in the village of Kotkai in South Waziristan, a member of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) named Qari Hussain, a man who trains potential suicide bombers, patted an Arabic-language television reporter on his back, telling him, "Please wrap up the interview – there is danger coming." But the man being interviewed merely gestured with his left hand to let the interview continue, all the while holding a small automatic assault rifle in his right.
In that small classroom, the danger was clearly mounting by the minute, as the sound of a US unmanned drone overhead became louder and louder. The more you hear the sound of a drone – bmmmmm – the more it hurts your head. The lower the pitch means the drone is higher in the sky; the louder it is, the closer. Sitting on a chair, I looked through a broken window to see whether I could see any sign of impending attack. There was good reason to be nervous: the man being interviewed was claimed by Washington DC to be 'hosting' al-Qaeda in Pakistan, actively engaged in planning attacks on US and NATO forces across the border in Afghanistan. Islamabad, meanwhile, held him responsible for all the major terrorist activities in the country, including the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
After the interview, I asked the man about the drone that we had heard. "I have no fear," said the short, stocky Baitullah Mehsud, the head of the TTP, the umbrella of militant organisations that since early 2007 had spread throughout the tribal belt along the Afghan border. In retrospect, of course, perhaps he should have. On 5 August, a drone killed him at his father-in-law's house in South Waziristan, in an attack that left his second wife dead as well – if Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik is to be believed. Indeed, the days following 5 August were suddenly rife with rumours, claims and counterclaims, by various governments and those close to Baitullah himself. His lieutenants continue to deny his death, though the 17 August arrest of TTP spokesperson Maulvi Omar seemed to confirm the reports of Baitullah's death. Either way, this 'chief terrorist', whom American and Pakistani intelligence officials have said to be as dangerous as Osama bin Laden, has not been heard from or seen in public since.