Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Taliban in Pakistan, had just consoled the father of a 16-year-old suicide bomber when he spoke of his religious compulsion to drive American forces out of Pashtun tribal lands. "I know very well the military might of America, and that fighting with America is like banging my head against a wall," said Mehsud, his dark eyes gleaming beneath a black turban. "But my religion compels me to fight against the occupiers until the last drop of my blood," he said, according to a witness among the scores of kinsmen and fighters who had assembled to commemorate the boy's martyrdom for the cause.
Two months ago, Mehsud was declared Emir of the Taliban in Pakistan. Yet in 2005 a Pakistani general had called him "a soldier of peace" for signing a peace deal that brought a short-lived lull in the conflict in South Waziristan.
Intelligence officials say he's been behind a wave of suicide attacks in Pakistani cities since the army stormed Islamabad's Red Mosque in July to crush a militant movement. But it was when Pakistani officials named him as the prime suspect in the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto on December 27 that Mehsud's notoriety rocketed. CIA Director Michael Hayden also said the evidence pointed toward the little big man -- Mehsud is barely five foot tall -- in South Waziristan. |