CIA strikes back: Top Pakistan Taliban leader believed killed in drone missile strike

Hakimullah Mehsud as he looked before a Hellfire missile mashed him up

Hakimullah Mehsud took over the leadership of the Pakistani Taliban only last August after a CIA drone-fired missile strike killed the previous Taliban kingpin, Baithullah Mehsud.

Now, another CIA missile strike may have killed Hakimullah in Pakistan's wild North Waziristan region:

A CIA drone strike on a suspected militant hideout today killed 12 people in an attack aimed at killing the top Taleban commander in Pakistan.

A local tribal leader said Hakimullah Mehsud was killed in the early-morning raid, but the Taleban insisted he was still alive. Pakistani officials have not yet made any claim over his fate.

In the strike a pair of missiles hit a mud-walled compound which previously housed an Islamic seminary in Pasalkot village in North Waziristan where Mehsud, the chief of the Pakistani Taleban movement, was believed to be staying.

Pakistani security officials confirmed Mehsud was the target. He had succeeded Baithullah Mehsud last year after he was killed in a drone strike on his house in South Waziristan last August.

Since the December suicide bombing attack on a CIA base in Afghanistan that killed seven CIA personnel, far from dealing CIA operations a blow, the missile strikes have come faster and more furious:

The drone strikes have intensified in the region since then. As many as 45 people have been killed in eight strikes in the past two weeks. Last weekend, a Jordanian militant who served as a bodyguard for al-Qaeda's third in command is believed to have been killed in one of two strikes close to Mir Ali.

We last saw Hakimullah just days ago when the mass murderer was trying to glom onto some "credit" for the attack on the CIA:

If confirmed, the death of Mehsud would come as a very serious blow to the Taleban, which has been responsible for most of the deaths of over 700 people in terrorist attacks inside Pakistan in the past year.

Last week the Taleban released a video showing Mehsud sitting with the Jordanian double agent who carried out the suicide bombing at the CIA base. The attack demonstrated the close links between Pakistani Taleban and al-Qaeda.

If he escaped this time, there will be a next time -- probably very soon.

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UPDATE -- The Times of India reports that the Taliban says Hakimullah Mehsud was "injured" in the missile strike but is not dead. We'll see. When Baithullah Mehsud was killed last August, the Taliban was loathe to confirm his death, in part due to an immediate internal struggle for leadership.

Obama's Afghan decision took Presidential courage in the face of feckless left-wing and right-wing opposition

President Obama addresses the Cadet Corps and the nation at West Point

President Obama has made the right decision to commit 30,000 more Americans troops to the fight in Afghanistan -- on top of the 20,000 additional troops he approved early this year -- to "finish the job" of defeating al Qaeda and its essential ally, Mullah Omar's Taliban. Obama said last year as a candidate that this is the "necessary war" and that he would finish it. He said it again in the spring. He said it again last night at West Point. With the two troop increases, Obama is more than doubling the number of U.S. combat brigades engaged in this fight -- from three to eight. He is also ramping up a more aggressive U.S. strategy to deal with the al Qaeda-Taliban sanctuaries inside the Pakistani tribal areas, where he has already greatly stepped up the tempo of CIA-led drone missile attacks. It's hard to see what else Obama needs to do to demonstrate that he takes his Presidential responsibility for national security seriously.

It was also a courageous decision in light of the certain attacks it would draw -- and has quickly drawn -- from both the deeply unserious pacifistic left wing of the his own party and the comically aggressive right wing of the GOP.

Interestingly, a good deal of the barbs from both sides revolved around Obama's setting out a flexible 18-month time frame for the Afghan surge. Senate Democratic dove, Russ Feingold, found this wanting because it was not a strict deadline for withdrawal: ”I do not support the president’s decision to send additional troops to fight a war in Afghanistan that is no longer in our national security interest. While I appreciate that the president made clear we won’t be in Afghanistan forever, I am disappointed by his decision not to offer a timetable for ending our military presence there." Meanwhile, Senate Republican hawk, John McCain, undermined his standing as a national security guru by immediately leading a GOP attack on Obama over the time frame without even a feeble effort at demonstrating bipartisan unity behind a President making a hard choice to send young men and women to war: “Then it makes no sense for him to announce the date,” Mr. McCain retorted. In short, he said, “that gives the wrong impression to our friends, it’s the wrong impression to give our enemies.”

Beyond Capitol Hill, the attacks were far more intense -- and almost stupefyingly simplistic and irresponsible. MoveOn.org is already pushing a petition to Congress to set a binding deadline for a U.S. withdrawal. Appearing on CNN's "Larry King Live" right after Obama's speech, radical activist Michael Moore called the U.S. presence in Afghanistan "insane" and claimed, in effect, that "there is no al Qaeda in Afghanistan." On the right, columnist Ralph Peters would win if there was a prize for the most hysterical nonsense for writing that Obama's 18-month time frame was a " presidential declaration of surrender." It's a mystery to me how or why Peters, a former Army officer, thinks that adding the firepower of five Army and Marine combat brigades since last spring won't have any effect on the Taliban, while Obama's setting a target date to begin shifting security responsibility to the Afghans will lead to a U.S. defeat.

Obama's formulation is straightforward, clear and compelling: This is a fight we did not ask for but must win for our own safety and security. It has gone on for a long time because we did not apply the necessary resources to it. We're going to do that now. The Afghans and others must do their parts as well. It won't take forever, and as President, I won't let it.

I find it hard to take issue with any of that. Americans of every political persuasion should back the President. There will be more than enough time to find fault if he fails.

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Reports: CIA drone-fired missile attack kills Baitullah Mehsud, leader of Pakistani Taliban

Waziristan Taliban chieftain Baitullah Mehsud in better times

We may never know for sure, but it's being reported widely that a CIA missile has blown Pakistan's most wanted terrorist, Baitullah Mehsud, the killer of Benazir Bhutto among countless other victims, to smithereens:

"There is strong indication" that Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a CIA drone strike that targeted a house Wednesday, a senior administration official told ABC News.

U.S. and Pakistani officials believe Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud is dead. U.S. and Pakistani officials believe that a strike in South Waziristan yesterday "very likely" killed Mehsud. U.S. officials said they had visual and other "indicators" that it was Mehsud, and that there is a 95 percent chance that he is among the dead. Pakistani officials are trying to collect physical evidence to be certain.

Baitullah Mehsud is enemy number one in Pakistan. He is believed to be behind some of the most spectacular attacks in that country, including the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December 2007 and suicide bombings in Lahore.

Recently, the CIA concentrated resources on tracking and targeting Mehsud partly at the behest of Pakistan's civilian government, led by Bhutto's husband, sif Ali Zardari. So Islamabad should be a bit happier place today.

This latest success should teach everyone a lesson about the capabilities of the CIA and America's intelligence community, which have lately come in for a wide range of criticisms from the left and the right. The CIA's Hellfire missiles fired from Predator and Reaper drone aircraft have been killing al Qaeda and Taliban leaders and fighters a lot more effectively than anything else being done by any arm of the U.S. Government or our allies.

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UPDATE -- The New York Times reports that the Taliban has confirmed Mehsud's death last Wednesday in a CIA missile strike.