Pak Talibans new chief ordered attack on Malala

The acting head of the Taliban,Asmatullah Shaheen,told journalists in North Waziristan,a tribal area that is a haven for militants,that the governing council had chosen Mullah Fazlullah,the leader of a Taliban faction in the northwestern Swat Valley,to succeed Hakimullah Mehsud,who was killed in an American drone strike last Friday.

Pakistani intelligence officials confirmed that Fazlullah had been chosen following almost a week of deliberations by the Taliban shura,or governing council,in North Waziristan. He was a surprise choice because the two previous leaders of the Pakistani Taliban belonged to the Mehsud tribe of South Waziristan,another militant hub in the tribal belt.

Fazlullah,by contrast,has been widely reported in recent years to be hiding in the mountains of Kunar and Nuristan Provinces in eastern Afghanistan,from where he has orchestrated attacks inside Pakistan.

Fazlullah is a militant leader of considerable notoriety with long experience in both battling the Pakistani government and occasionally negotiating with it. Having started his career as the operator of a chair lift that spanned a river,he rose to prominence in 2007 through a pirate radio station that broadcast jihadist propaganda across Swat,a picturesque valley in northwestern Pakistan.

Soon afterward,his armed fighters displaced the civil government. They instituted an authoritarian and often cruel rule that mandated public floggings,executions and the closure of girls schools in the valley,which was once a favourite of honeymooning couples. Fazlullah also captured public attention by riding through the valley on a white horse,and by allying with militant clerics who ran the Lal Masjid in the centre of the capital,Islamabad.

Mullah Fazlullah

First came to prominence a decade ago with his fiery radio tirades against the Pakistani government,education and the polio vaccine.

The 39-year-old is a passionate ideologue,a cleric implacably opposed to any rapprochement with the Pakistani state

Fazlullah claimed ultimate responsibility for ordering the shooting of Malala Yousafzai in 2012. He was also behind the killing of high-ranking army officer Maj-Gen Sanaullah Niazi in September

Tall and powerfully-built,Fazlullah was highly respected by previous Taliban leaders Baitullah and Hakimullah Mehsud

In a recent interview,Fazlullah said his next target would be Pakistans military chief Gen Ashfaq Kayani.

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