Enraged at the killing of its leader in a US drone strike, the banned terrorist outfit Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan on Saturday vowed to take “unprecedented” revenge for the attack.
TTP chief Hakeemullah Mehsud and three other terrorists were killed in the US drone attack in North Waziristan Agrncy on Friday.
A report in The New York Times read that Mehsud’s killing has thrown into disarray plans by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to engage in peace talks with the TTP with enraged militant commanders now vowing to repay the killing in bloodshed.
“Our revenge will be unprecedented,” Abu Omar, a Taliban commander in North Waziristan, was quoted as saying by the NYT report.
Omar said he considered the Pakistani government was also “fully complicit” in the drone strike. “We know our enemy very well,” he said.
Believed to have been behind the failed Times Square bombing plot of 2010, Hakimullah took over as head of the TTP in August 2009 after the death of former leader Baitullah Mehsud in a drone strike.
He carried an American reward of $5 million on his head as a most wanted terrorist.
Reports of his killing have surfaced in the past but were later found to be false.
This time, Americans tracking Hakimullah were “nearly certain” of his location ahead of the strike, an US official said in the report, adding that intelligence was collected after the strike to conclude the top terrorist was dead.
TTP vows to avenge Mehsud’s killing
