London/Islamabad: Pakistan Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud, who was thought to have been killed in a US drone attack early this year, is alive and "basically OK", claimed a senior ISI official.
The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency official told The Guardian: "He (Mehsud) is alive...
"He had some wounds but he is basically OK."
Mehsud was believed to have died in a drone strike in South Waziristan in January. Though a Pakistani minister had then said that the Taliban chief had been killed, his death was not confirmed by either US or Pakistani intelligence.
Mehsud, who claimed responsibility for several suicide attacks, including the one on the five-star Pearl Continental Hotel in Peshawar, was made chief of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan after his predecessor Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a drone attack in August last year.
The senior official said he had seen the video footage of the missile attack on Mehsud, but other intelligence reports had since confirmed that Mehsud had survived.
There has been a significant stepping up of drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal belt.
"The US government is under pressure because it is unable to achieve much in Afghanistan. This is one way of hitting their Al Qaida enemies, as they define them," the official was quoted as saying.
Even if Mehsud has survived, he would have been left with a weakened Taliban due to a massive army assault in its South Waziristan stronghold, the official said.
His leadership has been challenged and "he may not be in the leadership position".
"His rise was accidental. He was mister nobody, people found it difficult to accept him."
Mehsud, born in Kotkai village of South Waziristan Agency and educated in a seminary, had fought against US forces in Afghanistan after the Taliban regime in Kabul was ousted in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks.
He later rose to prominence as the commander of thousands of Taliban fighters in the Kurram, Aurakzai and Khyber tribal regions.
He said the Pakistani spy agency would be "very, very willing" to play a role in negotiations with the Taliban, but only if called upon by both the Afghan and US governments. For now, he said, Pakistan's spies are "sitting on the sidelines, watching".
"There are a number of different efforts and nobody knows what anyone else is doing. It's a very fragmented effort." He added that "if it's meant to confuse the Taliban, it's working".
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