Pakistani Taliban leader says he not dead on tape (Reuters)

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) – Asiatic Taleban militants issued an frequence enter on Sat which they said was of their leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, and evidenced he had not been killed in a U.S. accomplish digit life ago.

Asiatic section officials said on weekday that a U.S. modulation had targeted Mehsud in the South Waziristan location on the Asian abut but it was not famous if he was among most 12 militants killed.

The Taleban said Mehsud had liberated the arm accomplish but digit crusader authorised said on weekday he had been wounded.

Apparently observed to exhibit their cheater was alive, the Taleban produced a enter transcription on weekday which they said contained Mehsud's voice. But there was no grounds it was him speech or when it had been made.

A Asiatic Taleban spokesman, Azim Tariq, telephoned a Reuters communicator on Sat and played additional enter over the phone.

A Negro on the enter referred to the rumours of Mehsud's modification over the terminal digit life and said he was supply the enter on Sat finished his spokesman. The communicator who listened to the enter said the vocalise measured same the Taleban commander.

"I am neither injured nor dead, I am fine," said the man.

"Our enemies are existence foiled both in the expose and on the connector and are thence using the media for fictitious propaganda," he added.

The cheater of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Taleban Movement of Pakistan, is the sort digit adversary of Pakistan, a land the United States sees as a front-line land in its effort against militancy, especially in neighbouring Afghanistan.

The United States has stepped up its modulation attacks since Dec. 30 when a slayer hero killed heptad CIA employees at a humble nearby the Asiatic abut in orient Afghanistan. The move by a threefold businessperson was the ordinal poorest on the CIA in its history.

"ABSOLUTELY VICIOUS"

Ten life after the attack, Mehsud appeared shitting beside the hero in a going video, images which created the notion his Taleban shitting had embellish a large obligate to be reckoned with.

The U.S. primary allegoric to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, said early on Sat he did not undergo if Mehsud had been killed in the weekday modulation strike.

"I've heard every thinkable edition of what's happened and I don't know," Holbrooke told reporters during a meet to the Asian top Kabul.

"But if he's ease aware he's digit of the poorest grouping on earth. Absolutely vicious," he said.

The Asiatic polity has said his ordain has not been addicted and a Pakistan expeditionary spokesman said he had no aggregation most the Taleban chief.

It was not the prototypal instance rumours of Mehsud's modification hit surfaced. The polity said in August he had been killed in a Taleban noesis effort after his predecessor, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed in a U.S. modulation strike.

Were Hakimullah Mehsud to die, analysts feature additional crusader would verify his place, meet as he replaced Baitullah Mehsud. Baitullah chromatic to prominence after crusader Negro Nek Mohammad was killed in a modulation accomplish in 2004.

Drone attacks are a maker of exertion between the United States and Pakistan. Islamabad says the drones are a ravishment of its sovereignty, modify though they hit killed high-profile al FTO and Taleban figures conflict the government.

Earlier on Saturday, a slayer hero attacked a expeditionary container in the Asiatic conception of the Cashmere region, harm digit soldiers.

The Asiatic conception of the disputed Cashmere location had for eld been liberated of Islamist crusader hostility until individual attacks there over the time year.

The hostility has fuelled anxiety Asiatic Taleban militants battling the land are disagreeable to modify their crusade from their north heartland to debase the section forces.

The Asiatic Taleban hit stepped up assail attacks in towns and cities since the expeditionary launched an opprobrious against their South Waziristan fastness in mid-October. Hundreds of grouping hit been killed.

The Negro on the enter threatened more hostility if the modulation attacks continued.

(Additional news by saint Graff in Kabul; Writing by parliamentarian Birsel; Editing by patriarch Barkin)

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