The new video shows Hakimullah Mehsud threatening attacks on the US
Four months after he was believed killed in a U.S. drone strike, Pakistan Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud has appeared in a new video, vowing revenge attacks against major American cities.
Mehsud threatened to carry out strikes against the US within a month for killings of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda leaders as he surfaced in a nine-minute video apparently made on April 4, U.S. monitoring groups reported.
“The time is very near when our fidayeen will attack states in major US cities,” Mehsud warned on the video where he was shown flanked by two armed masked men.
This is the first time that Taliban have directly threatened to carry out suicide attacks on the US soil, on the pattern of their close allies Al-Qaeda.
The video comes in the wake of an attempted car bombing in New York’s Times Square on Sunday and follows another video released by Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) in which the group claimed responsibility for the failed strike. The U.S. investigative agencies have however ruled out the attack being handiwork of any Islamist terror organisation.
Video tapes have been released of what appears to be Hakimullah Mehsud, the leader of the main Pakistani Taliban group, warning the US of multiple attacks on its citizens.
The tapes of Mehsud, who was reported dead in a January drone attack, emerged just a day after another Pakistani Taliban group claimed responsibility for a failed bombing in New York.
An unidentified voice purportedly belonging to Mehsud, said the Taliban takes "full responsibility for the recent attack in the USA" in a video released by SITE, a US-based group monitoring Taliban media.
The video, allegedly recorded on April 19, makes no specific reference to the attack in New York City, nor does it mention that the location or that it was a car bomb.
Mehsud was presumed to have been killed in a drone strike in northwestern Pakistan, but last week Pakistani intelligence officials suggested Mehsud may have survived the attack.
Dismissed claim
US authorities investigating the failed car bombing of New York's Times Square have dismissed the earlier claim of responsibility made over the internet by a group led by Qari Hussein Mehsud.
Pakistani Taliban sources also told Al Jazeera on Sunday that they were not involved.
In a second video recording, released by IntelCenter, another monitoring agency, a man appearing to be Mehsud promises that "God willing, very soon in some days or a month's time, the Muslim [community] will see the fruits of most successful attacks of our fedayeen in USA".
"Fedayeen" usually refers to suicide bombers, which the car bomb attempt in New York did not involve.
Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, reporting from the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, said the threat apparently issued by Mehsud could have ramifications both in the US and in Pakistan.
"Will they [the US] increase the number of drone strikes into Pakistan now that Hakimullah has issued a threat?" he said.
"The claim that there will be suicide attacks in mainland USA is not something the Americans will take lightly. They will, of course, update security operations.
"The question is if the Taliban has the capability to strike on such a large distance. It's not something that many people believe is possible."
Baitullah Mehsud, the predecessor of Hakimullah Mehsud, reportedly claimed responsibility for a mass shooting at the American Civic Association in Binghamton in April 2009. That claim turned out to be false.
U.S. authorities played down the potential connection between the Pakistani militant network and the car bomb, saying the group does not have global infrastructure to carry out such attacks.
Mehsud was reported to have been killed in January in a US drone strike in Shaktai area of Waziristan in northwestern Pakistan. But, last week Pakistan’s military intelligence ISI claimed that he had survived the attack.
Referring to the reports of his death, 27-year-old Tehreek-e-Taliban chief in the video rubbished them describing them as “open lie and propaganda by the non-believers.”
“Inshaallah (God willing) very soon in some days or a month’s time the world will see the fruit’s of most successful attacks by our fidayeen in the USA,” Mehsud warned in the video.
CNN said Mehsud, who was once Pakistan’s most feared terrorist commander, had made similar threats in an audio message in another TTP tape released to Pakistani journalists on April 19 which carried his photograph pasted on a map of U.S.
Times Square attack
The second video in which the TTP claimed responsibility for Times Square attack, the outfit said it was a retaliation for having “martyred many of our Muslim leaders and many respective brothers from Al-Qaeda.”
Specifically naming the killing of Baitullah Mehsud — his predecessor in TTP, who was killed in a U.S. missile strike in August last year — Mehsud said that TTP had already infiltrated the U.S.
“Our fidayeen have penetrated the terrorist American, we will give extremely painful blows to the fanatic America.”
He also warned NATO and other allies to abandon the US or they would face worst humiliation and destruction than America itself.
SITE, the U.S. intelligence group which monitors terrorist websites, said the video was made by Umar studio, the media arm of the TTP, which was sure to embarrass Islamabad.
The second video also showed Qari Hussain, the Taliban’s suicide bomber trainer.
On another website commonly used by Islamists said the New York attacks were also revenge for killing of two senior Iraqi Al-Qaeda leaders Abu Ayub Al-Masri and Abu Omar Al-Baghdadi.
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