LADDAH: A US drone attacked a militants’ hideout near the Afghan border in South Waziristan on Thursday, killing 12 people and wounding eight others.

Leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakeemullah Mehsud. – AFP (File Photo)

The pre-dawn attack in Shaktoi area triggered rumours that Hakimullah Mehsud, the chief of the banned Tahrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, had been killed. But TTP spokesman Azam Tariq dismissed the reports as ‘baseless’.

“The amir (Hakimullah) is safe,” he told this correspondent on phone. However, he confirmed that Hakimullah was in Shaktoi. Other sources said he had left the hideout minutes before the drone strike.

On the other hand, officials in Peshawar and the tribal region insisted that the Taliban chief was among the dead.

“It is immaterial to say how many people have been killed in the attack. The important thing for us is whether Hakimullah is among those killed,” one official said.

He said that the TTP chief was the target of the attack and “he has probably been killed”.

The official said that two missiles had hit the house of Fazal Mehsud alias Uqabi in the area in Sararogha subdivision adjacent to North Waziristan.

According to the sources, three vehicles parked in the compound were destroyed. The injured people were taken to a private clinic in Mirali in North Waziristan.

Hakimullah, 28, succeeded Baitullah Mehsud on Aug 20 last year after Baitullah had been killed in a drone attack on the night of Aug 5.

The government had announced a Rs100 million reward for killing or capturing him.

The TTP had claimed responsibility for a deadly suicide attack on a forward operating base of the US Central Intelligence Agency at Chapman in Khost province of Afghanistan on Dec 30.

After the claim a video was released showing the suicide bomber, Jordanian double-agent Humam Khalil Abu Mulal Al Balawi, sitting next to Hakimullah.

Anwer Iqbal adds from Washington: Official US sources refused to confirm or deny reports that Hakimullah had been killed in the attack. “We don’t know,” said an official when asked about the reports.

AFP adds: Visiting US envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke told reporters that he could not comment on reports of Hakimullah’s death.

“He’s a very bad person. He either is or was a very bad person and either way he’s as bad a person as there has been in this region for a long time,” he said.

The drone strike was the seventh in Pakistan this month. An intelligence official in Peshawar said: “The targeted site was a militant training camp.”

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