DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan — Pakistani Taliban commanders acknowledged Tuesday that the militants’ top leader, Baitullah Mehsud, was dead, ending weeks of claims and counterclaims over his fate after a U.S. missile strike on his father-in-law’s home this month.
Hakimullah Mehsud and Waliur Rehman, two of Mehsud’s top aides and reportedly rivals to succeed him, called The Associated Press to say that their leader had died Sunday of injuries from the Aug. 5 strike in South Waziristan, near the Afghan border.
“He was wounded. He got the wounds in a drone strike, and he was martyred two days ago,” Hakimullah Mehsud said.
Rehman later repeated the same claim.
The Taliban had insisted for weeks — in periodic, sometimes contradictory telephone calls to media from various commanders — that Baitullah Mehsud was still alive after the missile strike, while U.S. and Pakistani officials said he was almost certainly dead and a leadership clash had ensued.
Hakimullah Mehsud and Rehman denied the reports of infighting in their Tuesday evening call to AP, repeating an earlier Taliban announcement that Hakimullah Mehsud now leads the Pakistani Taliban and adding that Rehman would head the al-Qaeda- linked movement’s wing in South Waziristan.
They said they were calling together to dispel reports of disunity.
