Evidence ‘pretty conclusive’, says top US official

WASHINGTON: US National Security Adviser Jim Jones said on Sunday he had seen ‘pretty conclusive’ evidence that Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud had died in a drone attack.

‘We think so. We put it in the 90 per cent category,’ Gen Jones told NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ when asked if Baitullah had been killed in a US missile strike on Wednesday. 
Pakistan, he said, also had confirmed the death. 

Later, in an interview to CBS Face the Nation, Gen Jones said Baitullah’s death was a very important development. 

‘First of all, it’s important because this is Pakistan’s public enemy number one,’ he said.

‘He controlled a very violent aspect of the insurgent problems on the Pakistani side of the border. And this would be — this is a big deal.’ 

A Pentagon official, Bryan Whitman, however, warned that Baitullah’s death had not diminished the threat of the Taliban. 

‘I don’t want to make more than one should of a single individual,’ he said. 

Meanwhile, US counter-terrorism experts noted that American and Pakistani commanders had been working together more closely in recent months and Baitullah’s death proved that this cooperation was effective. 

‘This is an important step for the US-Pakistani relations,’ said Juan Zarate, a senior adviser at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies and a top counter-terrorism official under Bush. 

The experts predicted that the two countries would now increase their focus on other insurgent leaders, such as Sirajuddin Haqqani and Mullah Omar. 

Mr Haqqani and his family form the Haqqani network, a group based in North Waziristan. 

The CIA has accused Pakistan of maintaining close ties with the group, which is also linked to Al Qaeda and sometimes operates in concert with the Taliban. 

The Haqqani network has masterminded some of the deadliest terror attacks in Afghanistan. 

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, a Missouri Democrat, called reports of Baitullah’s death ‘a sign that our joint efforts with Pakistan’s military’ were working. 

‘The most helpful thing of all may be that Pakistani public opinion will be very pleased, and that gives the Pakistani government a benefit to show for cooperating with the United States,’ said John Nagl, president of the Centre for a New American Security in Washington.
 
‘This is the first time I feel that there’s a realistic chance that Osama bin Laden himself might be found at some point,’ said Ken Katzman, a senior Afghanistan analyst with the Congressional Research Service in Washington.