Baitullah Mehsud, the brains behind Pakistan’s Taliban has reportedly escaped a U.S missile strike that was carried on a terrorist’s funeral. According to intelligence sources, Mehsud was attending the funeral and might have left the area minutes before the strike took place. However, Taliban spokesperson denies these reports and has asserted that the Taliban leader wasn’t in any kind of danger.

Baitullah Mehsud has been the mastermind behind the string of suicide bombings carried out across Pakistan and is widely suspected for the assassination of the former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in the year 2007. On Tuesday, one of Baitullah’s fiercest rival was gunned down by suspected Taliban members. As of now, one of the most wanted man by the intelligence agencies, Mehsud is the sole target of the Pakistani military offensive in the South Waziristan region of Pakistan.

Taliban hit a police post on the outskirts of Peshawar, killing three officers. The attack took place  early Wednesday, when the Taliban launched rockets at the police post in the north-west region.

Baitullah Mehsud owns a militia of about 12,000 heavily armed men hiding in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas or FATA that is largely ungoverned and where lawlessness still prevails.      United States along with Pakistan has been searching for him and has already tried to kill him with two airstrikes in the last one week, one on a suspected Taliban training camp and other on a funeral, where Baitullah Mehsud was expected to be.

As per the intelligence information, Baitullah Mehsud was present at the funeral and his militia lost contact with him momentarily. It suggests that the Taliban leader had a very close call and could have been killed if the missiles had arrived minutes before he left the area. The missile strike killed 55 people, including several top leaders of Taliban and injuring more.

A close friend of Baitullah Mehsud, Qari Hussain said,

“Baitullah Mehsud was at a secret place at the time of the American missile attack, and the attack killed only five of our colleagues, and the remaining 45 slain men were villagers.”

Via AP.