Baitullah Mehsud’s “jaunty appearance” at a press conference in South Waziristan underscores the wide latitude Pakistan’s government has granted the militants under a new series of peace deals, and its impact in Afghanistan, where and American commanders say cross-border attacks have surged since March, says a report published in the New York Times on Monday. The report claimed that the “impunity” of Mehsud’s behaviour has “outraged” the Bush administration, which is pressing the Pakistani government to arrest and prosecute him.
Reluctant: “Bringing Baitullah Mehsud, the head of this extremist group in South Waziristan – capturing him and bringing him to justice, which is what should happen to him,” is what the United States wants from Pakistan, John Negroponte, the US deputy secretary of State, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month. But the Pakistani government, which at times has considered Mehsud an ally and is now fearful of his power, appears reluctant to hunt him down.
Days before his news conference, Pakistani forces pulled back from South Waziristan as part of the peace deals. American and Pakistani officials accuse Mehsud of masterminding the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister, in December and sending scores of suicide bombers in Pakistan and in Afghanistan, while forging a symbiotic relationship with Al Qaeda on PakistanÂ’s frontier, the report pointed out.