The Pakistani Taliban has released an image that purportedly shows the face of its leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, shortly after he was reportedly killed in a drone strike late last week -- the latest piece of evidence that the terrorist leader is dead.
With marble floors, lush green lawns and a towering minaret, the $120,000 farm where feared Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud died in a US drone strike was no grubby mountain cave.
Mehsud spent his days skipping around Pakistan's rugged tribal areas to avoid the attentions of US drones. But his family, including two wives, had the use of an eight-roomed farmhouse set amid lawns and orchards growing apples, oranges, grapes and pomegranates.
As well as the single-storey house, the compound in Dandey Darpakhel village, five kilometres (three miles) north of Miranshah, was adorned with a tall minaret -- purely for decorative purposes.
Militant sources said the property in the North Waziristan tribal area was bought for Mehsud nearly a year ago for $120,000 -- a huge sum by Pakistani standards -- by close aide Latif Mehsud, who was captured by the US in Afghanistan last month.
An AFP journalist visited the property several times when the previous owner, a wealthy landlord, lived there.
With the Pakistan army headquarters for restive North Waziristan just a kilometre away, locals thought of Mehsud's compound as the "safest" place in a dangerous area.
Its proximity to a major military base recalls the hideout of Osama bin Laden in the town of Abbottabad, on the doorstep of Pakistan's elite military academy.
"I saw a convoy of vehicles two or three times in this street but I never thought Hakimullah would have been living here. It was the safest place for us before this strike," local shopkeeper Akhter Khan told AFP.
This illusion of safety was shattered on Friday when a US drone fired at least two missiles at Mehsud's vehicle as it stood at the compound gate waiting to enter, killing the Pakistani Taliban chief and four cadres.
The area around Dandey Darpakhel is known as a hub for the Haqqani network, a militant faction blamed for some of the most high-profile attacks in Afghanistan in recent years.
Many left the area during the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan, coming back after the US-led invasion following the 9/11 attacks.
Samiullah Wazir, a shopkeeper in the area, told AFP he would regularly see a convoy of four or five SUVs with blacked-out windows leave the compound early in the morning and return after sunset.
"We thought that somebody very important must be living in this house," Wazir said.
"One day, I saw a man wearing a white shawl entering the house and I thought he looked like Hakimullah, but I thought 'How can he live here because he could be easily hit by a drone strike?'"
But Hakimullah it was and on Friday he returned to his compound for the final time."We were closing the shop when his vehicle came and was about to enter the house when a missile struck it," Wazir said. "Moments later, an army of Taliban came and they cordoned off the area."
Obtaining confirmation of militants' deaths is notoriously difficult, but in this case Pakistani intelligence sources, senior Taliban members and a statement posted online by the Afghanistan Taliban all corroborate a reported account in which Mehsud was killed when his vehicle was struck with a missile fired from an American drone Friday. At least four others were killed in the strike, according to local news reports. A U.S. official told ABC News he has not seen anything to cause him to doubt the image is Mehsud.
The U.S. government alleged Mehsud was linked to the 2009 suicide bombing of a CIA outpost in Khost, Afghanistan that claimed the lives of seven CIA officers. After the bombing, a video surfaced online showing Mehsud with the would-be bomber, both taking credit for "arranging" the deadly attack. Mehsud was also implicated in the failed attempt to detonate a car bomb in New York City's iconic Times Square in May 2010.
Mehsud's death was hailed by former CIA officers whose colleagues had been killed in Khost.
"I don't revel in revenge killings, but that guy was a dirt bag," a former officer told ABC News Friday.
However, that was not the reaction of many in Pakistan, where there has been an outpouring of grief by Mehsud's supporters and a strongly-worded condemnation from the Pakistani government over the drone strike. The day after the strike, the Pakistani government called U.S. Ambassador Richard Olsen to its foreign office to register its protest.
"The latest drone strike will have a negative impact on the Government's initiative to undertake a dialogue with the TTP [Pakistani Taliban]," a statement released by the Pakistani government over the weekend said. "The Government, however, is determined to continue with these efforts to engage with the TTP, to bring an end to the ongoing violence and make them a part of mainstream politics within the parameters of our constitution."
Last month Mehsud told BBC News in a rare interview he would be open to "serious talks" about peace with the Pakistani government. In the same interview, however, he said he would still target "America and its friends," the BBC reported.
A Taliban spokesperson said Sunday the organization is in mourning and has not yet named a permanent replacement leader.
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