Pakistan state television: Taliban chief dead

Pakistan Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud is dead according to Pakistan state television.  According to a Fox News correspondent in Pakistan, intelligence sources confirm that Mehsud was injured in a U.S. drone attack around January 14th and subsequently succumbed to his injuries.  The Wall Street Journal reports:

If the latest reports of his demise prove true, it would be the second time in six months that American missiles have slain the leader of the Pakistan Taliban; Mr. Mehsud's predecessor -- Baitullah Mehsud (no relation) -- was killed in August by a U.S. drone.

Sunday's report also was not the first time Hakimullah Mehsud, who is in his late 20s or early 30s, was said to have died. For almost two months after he was named the leader of the Pakistan Taliban, an offshoot of the Afghan movement, Pakistani and U.S. officials insisted he had been killed in a power struggle for control of the group. The rumors didn't stop circulating until he held a small press conference in the tribal areas in early October.

Mr. Mehsud has since gone on to order a series of terror attacks on Pakistan's major cities. But he has also faced an onslaught from Pakistan's army in his home base, the South Waziristan tribal area.

At the same time, he has moved up the U.S. hit list. The U.S. attempts to kill Mr. Mehsud with missile strikes increased after the release in January of a video showing him with the al Qaeda double agent who blew himself up at an American base in eastern Afghanistan in late December, killing seven agents and contractors for the Central Intelligence Agency.

The CIA has had the difficult mission of protecting our interests abroad while simultaneously being undermined and interrogated by our own justice department, and impugned and second-guessed by the speaker of the house. The seven CIA casualties sustained in last month's homicide bomber attack in Afghanistan was second only to the eight killed in the Beirut embassy bombing in 1983.  It's been a tough year for the CIA.  Hopefully the elimination of the second Pakistan Taliban chief in six months portends a better year ahead for these brave Americans.