PAKISTANS MOST WANTED MAN WANTED NO MORE...

Pakistan's Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, who led a violent campaign of suicide attacks and assassinations against the Pakistani government, was killed in a US missile strike and his body has been buried, three Pakistani intelligence officials said Friday.

But one of the three said no intelligence agent had actually seen Baitullah Mehsud's body.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said intelligence sources have confirmed Baitullah’s death.

A senior US intelligence official had earlier said there were strong indications that Mehsud was among those killed in Wednesday's attack, but he would not elaborate.

Mehsud had al-Qaeda connections and was suspected in the killing of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Pakistan viewed him as its top internal threat and had been preparing an offensive against him.

For years, the US has considered Mehsud a lesser threat to its interests than some of the other Pakistani Taliban, their Afghan counterparts and al-Qaeda, because most of his attacks were focused inside Pakistan, not against US and Nato troops in Afghanistan.

That view appeared to change in recent months as Mehsud's power grew and concerns mounted that increasing violence in Pakistan could destabilise the country and threaten the entire region.But while Mehsud's death would be a big blow to the Taliban in Pakistan, he has deputies who could take his place. Whether a new leader could wreak as much havoc as Mehsud depends largely on how much pressure the Pakistani military continues to put on the network, especially in the tribal area of South Waziristan.Intelligence officials said Mehsud was killed in a missile strike Wednesday on the home of his father-in-law and that his body was buried in the village of Nardusai in South Waziristan, not far from the site of the strike.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly.One official said he had seen a classified intelligence report stating Mehsud was dead and buried, but that agents had not seen the body as the area was under Taliban control.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik earlier said he could confirm the death of Mehsud's wife but not of the Taliban leader himself, although information pointed in that direction.‘I can confirm to the extent that his wife is dead, and probably one of his brothers, but we do not have any...evidence that he's dead,’ Malik told reporters outside Parliament. But he added: ‘Yes, lot of information is pouring in from that area that he's dead, but I'm unable to confirm unless I have solid evidence.’

A security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said ‘about 70 per cent’ of the information pointed to Mehsud's being dead, but authorities had not yet been able to confirm this. He said authorities had not recovered a body.

Another senior Pakistani intelligence official said phone and other communications intercepts — he would not be more specific — had led authorities to suspect Mehsud was dead, but he also stressed there was no definitive evidence yet.

An American counterterrorism official said the US government was also looking into the reports. The official indicated the United States did not yet have physical evidence — remains — that would prove who died. But he said there are other ways of determining who was killed in the strike. He declined to describe them.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak on the matter publicly.

A local tribesman, who also spoke on condition his name not be used, said Mehsud had been at his father-in-law's house being treated for kidney pain, and had been put on a drip by a doctor, when the missile struck. The tribesman claimed he attended the Taliban chief's funeral.

Last year, a doctor for Mehsud announced the militant leader had died of kidney failure, but the reports turned out to be false.In March, the State Department authorized a reward of up to $5 million for the militant chief. And increasingly, American missiles fired by unmanned drones have focused on Mehsud-related targets.