Islamabad: The killing of Baitullah Mehsud, the most powerful Taliban commander in Pakistan, has led to a bloody and potentially divisive rift among Taliban militants active in the country's border region along Afghanistan, senior Pakistani intelligence officials said yesterday.

Mehsud was believed to have been killed along with one of his wives and several bodyguards in a suspected US missile strike last week in the border region.

His body or site of burial have not been found though Pakistan's foreign minister Shah Mahmoud Quraishi on Friday publicly cited intelligence reports confirming his death.

The latest intelligence assessment of a widening split in the Tehreek or movement of Taliban-Pakistan (TTP) created by Mehsud came as it emerged that one of the main contenders to replace the Taliban commander had himself been killed at the weekend.

Hakimullah Mehsud - a Taliban militant who was one of the three main commanders under the late Mehsud - was killed by Waliur Rehman, another contender for the top slot, when the Taliban's top council or "shura" met on Saturday to choose a successor.

A senior Pakistani intelligence official said that "Hakimullah Mehsud's killing has brought out in the open, what seemed to be a simmering dispute. Now, a smooth transition to a new leader is unlikely."

Lieutenant General (retired) Moinuddin Haider, the former interior minister, said that there appeared "to be a major rift among the ranks of the TTP" but warned, the government would have to move rapidly to exploit the void left behind by Mehsud. "The danger is that the TTP as one body could split in to smaller splinter groups, each with its own agenda. Those splinter groups could be more lethal," he said.

Mehsud was thought to have assembled between 10,000 and 20,000 fighters and oversaw particularly brutal practices such as the slitting of throats of suspected government informers.

Mehsud death 'pretty conclusive'

The evidence is "pretty conclusive" that Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud is dead, US national security adviser Jim Jones said yesterday.

"We think so. We put it in the 90 per cent category," Jones told NBC's Meet the Press when asked if Mehsud had been killed in a US missile attack on Wednesday. He added that Pakistan had confirmed the death.
- Reuters