Pakistani Taliban leader kills self to avoid arrest

A Pakistani Taliban leader blew himself up to avoid arrest by government forces near the Afghan border on Tuesday, three years after his release from US detention in Guantanamo Bay, officials said.

A Pakistani Taliban leader blew himself up to avoid arrest by government forces near the Afghan border on Tuesday, three years after his release from US detention in Guantanamo Bay, officials said.

Abdullah Mehsud (31), spent over two years in Guantanamo. Shortly after his release in March 2004, Mehsud shot to prominence by kidnapping two Chinese engineers working in South Waziristan, a region known as a hotbed of support for al-Qaeda and Taliban.

“He died in a house in Zhob,” said an Interior Ministry spokesperson, referring to a district of south-west Balochistan province neighbouring Waziristan.

A counter-terrorism squad acting on a tip-off raided the house belonging to a senior official from the pro-Taliban Islamist party of Fazal-ur-Rehman, leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly.

“We asked them to surrender but they opened fire,” said Mira Jan, chief administrator of Zhob. “The shooting lasted for about half an hour and then we heard a blast from inside the house.”

Mehsud blew himself up to avoid arrest, Jan said. However, the squad managed to arrest four men.

Mehsud, who lost a leg in a landmine explosion a few days before the Taliban took Kabul in September 1996, was the second-in-command of a Pakistani Taliban group headed by Baitullah Mehsud.

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Meanwhile, US-led troops killed at least 75 militants in three separate battles in Afghanistan.