Peshawar, PAKISTAN (Agencies) A U.S. drone fired two missiles on Thursday at a compound in northwest Pakistan where Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud was believed to have been, but it was not clear if he was killed, Pakistani officials said.
Missiles fired by unmanned US aircraft hit a compound in northwest Pakistan where Pakistani Taliban chief Mehsud was believed to have been, but it was not clear if he was killed, Pakistani officials said.
"We had information that he was around there. We're checking on whether he was killed," a Pakistani security official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters.
The area between North and South Waziristan is a stronghold of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) group, officials said.
"Hakimullah Mehsud was present at the same place in Shaktoi where the drone attack took place," TTP spokesman Azam Tariq told AFP by telephone.
"But he had left the place already when the drone attack took place. He is alive and completely safe."
His comments came after local television stations carried unconfirmed reports that Mehsud may have been killed in the strike, the seventh to hit Pakistan's lawless northwest tribal belt bordering Afghanistan this month.
Tariq did not say when Mehsud left the area, which Pakistan security forces described as "very remote."
Mehsud assumed leadership of the group blamed for thousands of deaths in Pakistan in late August, after his predecessor Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a US drone strike on August 5.
The TTP denied Baitullah Mehsud's death for weeks, apparently amid fierce infighting over his succession.
Missiles fired by unmanned US aircraft hit a compound in northwest Pakistan where Pakistani Taliban chief Mehsud was believed to have been, but it was not clear if he was killed, Pakistani officials said.
"We had information that he was around there. We're checking on whether he was killed," a Pakistani security official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters.
The area between North and South Waziristan is a stronghold of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) group, officials said.
"Hakimullah Mehsud was present at the same place in Shaktoi where the drone attack took place," TTP spokesman Azam Tariq told AFP by telephone.
"But he had left the place already when the drone attack took place. He is alive and completely safe."
His comments came after local television stations carried unconfirmed reports that Mehsud may have been killed in the strike, the seventh to hit Pakistan's lawless northwest tribal belt bordering Afghanistan this month.
Tariq did not say when Mehsud left the area, which Pakistan security forces described as "very remote."
Mehsud assumed leadership of the group blamed for thousands of deaths in Pakistan in late August, after his predecessor Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a US drone strike on August 5.
The TTP denied Baitullah Mehsud's death for weeks, apparently amid fierce infighting over his succession.
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