Baitullah Mehsud, Top Taliban Leader in Pakistan is Dead

The Foreign Minister of Pakistan says that Baitullah Mehsud is in fact dead, David MacDougall, a freelance reporter in Pakistan, just confirmed through Twitter. Mehsud was Pakistan’s Taliban leader and Pakistan's most wanted man, carrying a $5 million bounty on his head. A United States Drone fired two missiles into the room his wife was living in. The house of Mehsud’s father in-law.

Pakistani officials have been slow to confirm the death, due to other Taliban leaders thought dead before, including Baituallah Mehsud, but turned up alive later. The missile attack took place on Wednesday and Mehsud may have been buried the same day.

Taliban leaders have confirmed his death and have already held a meeting and appointed his replacement. A rival Taliban faction leader welcomes news of Baitullah Mehsud's apparent death.

"I confirm that Baitullah Mehsud and his wife died in the American missile attack in South Waziristan,’ Kafayatullah, an aide to Mehsud told The Associated Press by telephone. He would not give any further details.

Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman MalikRehman Malik , in his statements outside Parliament, urged Mehsud's associates to abandon their leaders and to "serve Islam in true meaning and serve Pakistan as this country has given them refuge." Mehsud has al-Qaida connections and Pakistan viewed him as its top internal threat and had been preparing an offensive against him. Though it was a CIA operation that finally got him. The US saw him as a danger to the war effort in Afghanistan, largely because of the threat he is believed to pose to nuclear-armed Pakistan.

Baitullah led at least 13 Taliban groups and is thought to have been involved in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan and the wife of now President Asif Ali ZardariAsif Ali Zardari. He had been in charge of most of the Taliban in Pakistan for almost five years. His death could become a turning point in Pakistan's war against militants in the country.