'Time to Strike': Taliban in Disarray After Shootout Allegedly Claims Two Successors

[tekisui]

Source: ABC News

Three days after a CIA drone strike killed the head of the Taliban in Pakistan, his two most likely successors apparently killed each other when they opened fire at a meeting to decide the next commander, according to initial reports provided to Pakistani intelligence officials.

Hakimullah and Wali Ur Rehman were both killed, a senior military official said, during a shootout in South Waziristan. The two were attending a tribal meeting, or shura, designed to choose the successor of Taliban in Pakistan chief Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed early Wednesday morning.

The incident could throw a Taliban already suffering from internal clashes into disarray. It also eliminated the two most popular choices to lead the group responsible for the worst terrorist attacks in the country's history.

more: http://www.abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=8285243&page=1

[foxfeet]

1. Pity.

[timeforpeace]

13. Pakistan sure has gotten good at "reporting" these "casualties" lately. You'd think they would worry

about their inside men having their cover blown. They must have inside men to know this shit. Or...

[Hobarticus]

2. I see the Taliban has adapted GOP-style self-destructive tendencies...

Most excellent...

[Doctor_Horrible]

6. I guess they shot each other when neither one could produce an Aussie/Kenyan birth certificate. nt

[Barack_America]

3. Couldn't have happened to nicer guys. nt

[HeresyLives]

4. Mehsud isn't dead.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8191105.stm

[tekisui]

5. Says the Taliban. If he isn't dead, I wonder why reports of multiple

'successors' being killed are coming out.

[HeresyLives]

7. How many times has this happened?

People reported dead, verified 20 different ways...and lo and behold there they are again, alive and well.

The Taliban, for all their faults, are always truthful about it.

Maybe the 'successors' jumped the gun, in more ways than one.

[tekisui]

11. We'll see.

I think he is probably dead. If he doesn't appear or release evidence of life, the power vacuum will suck more into violence against each other.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

8. Propaganda

Rationalizing the use of drone attacks. Perhaps the US propaganda ministry can begin with a daily death toll of innocents slaughtered in this war for resource control?

[tekisui]

10. I think it tells us more about how close the CIA and the ISI are working.

Mehsud was a Pakistani target, he was Pakistan's #1 enemy. Pakistan admitted helping the CIA with this one. I wonder what info the CIA will be getting from them. I would be willing to bet they traded info on one of the CIA's high targets.

I, too, would like to see an honest count of how many innocents we've killed. No extra-judicial killing is worth a single innocent life.

[jody]

9. What a crock, "Time to Strike". Pashtun desire to kick invaders from their homeland evidenced by

their members who comprise perhaps 95% of the Taliban are so decentralized that the death of a handful of so-called leaders by US decree will not cause a hiccup in Taliban attacks.

[BreweryYardRat]

12. Good riddance to bad rubbish, if true.

Heh.

[LooseWilly]

14. Uhh, 'Time to Strike'?

Strike who?... Is someone keeping tabs on the #4,5 & 6 men too? (I'll presume there are no women in leadership, as this IS the Taliban).

I get the impression that, without leadership, the Taliban is mostly- just folks...