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Signs of Taliban rift hearten Pakistan, U.S
Sun Aug 16, 2009 10:25am EDT
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By Kamran Haider and Adam Entous
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - U.S. and Pakistani officials meeting on Sunday said they were heartened by signs of a rift between Pakistani Taliban factions after the apparent death of militant leader Baitullah Mehsud.
Mehsud was the overall head of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a loose confederation of 13 factions. He is believed to have been killed in a U.S. missile strike on August 5.
"I can say that since Baitullah Mehsud, there's confusion, there's disarray and there's a lot of reports of infighting within the TTP," Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told a joint news conference with Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Before arriving in Islamabad late on Saturday, Holbrooke told reporters traveling with him; "Baitullah Mehsud is gone and it looks like there is a struggle for succession among his commanders."
On Saturday night, fighters from a rival, less anti-government faction, led by Maulvi Nazir Wazir, were ambushed and 17 were killed.
An intelligence official and a spokesman for Maulvi Nazir's group blamed the Mehsud group.
"They were hiding behind the rocks and as soon as our people reached there, they opened fire. It was so sudden and quick that none of our men fired back," Shaheen Wazir, Nazir's spokesman, told Reuters by telephone.
A spokesman for the Mehsud group denied responsibility.
Taliban officials have also denied Mehsud is dead, without offering proof that he is alive.
Earlier in the day, a Pakistani air strike killed 16 Mehsud fighters and wounded 32, according to intelligence officials in the area. A spokesman for Mehsud's group, Azam Tariq, said only civilians were killed in the air strike.
"The Pakistani government is following U.S. policies and killing our people but we won't spare them. We'll take revenge," Tariq told Reuters.
DEMORALISE AND DIVIDE
Analysts say the government will be maximizing any opportunity to demoralize the Taliban and to create splits in their ranks.
It is difficult to judge the validity of claims and counter claims by the government or militants as the Waziristan region is closed off to outsiders.
Inter-tribal rivalry, and the Pakistani security agency's tactics of playing off one group against another, has created a fluid situation, where alliances can shift quickly. Continued...
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