PESHAWAR: Pakistan’s Taliban, a close ally of al Qaeda, plans to attack American targets abroad to avenge the death of Osama bin Laden, said one of its senior leaders.
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Taliban Movement of Pakistan, has delivered on threats to avenge the killing of bin Laden by US special forces in a Pakistani town on May 2.
It bombed an American consulate convoy, laid siege to a naval base and blew up paramilitary cadets in Pakistan, which the Taliban sees as a US puppet and Washington regards as indispensable in its war on militancy.
Omar Khalid Khorasani, the top Taliban commander in Mohmand, one of Pakistan’s unruly tribal agencies, agreed to answer questions posed by Reuters and record them on a DVD.
The video starts with him and some associates sitting on the floor of a mud-walled house, eating mango slices and joking. Then he turns serious and speaks about the TTP’s intentions.
Recent TTP attacks in Pakistan were only the start of bloody reprisals after bin Laden’s death.
The TTP has not demonstrated the ability to stage sophisticated attacks in the West. Its one apparent bid to carnage in the United States failed.
It claimed responsibility for the botched car bomb attack in New York’s Times Square last year. But American intelligence agencies take it seriously. It was later added to the United States’ list of foreign terrorist organisations.
Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud appeared in a video with the Jordanian double agent who blew himself up in a US base in Afghanistan last year, in the second most deadly attack in CIA history. Seven CIA officials were killed. (Reuters)
