Pakistan Orders Manhunt for Taliban Leader Baitullah Mehsud

The Pakistan government has ordered the army to hunt down the Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in his mountain hideout in South Waziristan.

"Baitullah Mehsud is the root cause of all evils," said the governor of North-West Frontier province, Owais Ghani, announcing the operation in Islamabad.

The precise details of the manhunt remain unclear and the military said it was "evaluating the orders". But the operation promises to be a tough campaign against a determined enemy in some of the world's most difficult fighting terrain.

South Waziristan is a rugged mountainous area that was the scene of fierce battles between British colonial forces and tribal rebels during the 1930s and 40s. It is considered a possible hiding place of Osama bin Laden.

Mehsud, a former bodybuilder and smuggler, is the most prominent of Pakistan's Taliban leaders. His Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) group has allies across the tribal belt and has participated in recent battles against the Pakistani army in the Swat valley.

Mehsud has become public enemy number one in Pakistan for his role in dozens of suicide bombings in major cities over the past two years that the government says has killed over 1,200 people. But he has denied involvement in the most notorious attack of recent years – the assassination of the former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in December 2007.

Limited operations against him have already started. Fighting erupted over the weekend in the village of Spinkai Raghzai, at the entrance to Mehsud's mountain demesne.

The nature and size of the forthcoming operation remain unclear. An army spokesman, Major General Athar Abbas, told the Associated Press: "The government has made the announcement. We will give a comment after evaluating the orders."

The operation is of great interest to the US because Waziristan is the base for hundreds of foreign al-Qaida fighters, some of whom are believed to be plotting attacks on the west.

Waziristan is also the base for several large groups of Pakistani Taliban fighters, who use the rugged terrain to cross into Afghanistan and fight US-led Nato forces.

Over the weekend a presumed US drone attacked a three-vehicle convoy near Makeen, in Mehsud's area, killing five people.

The most pressing question for the army is whether the other two major Taliban commanders in the area – Qari Gul Bahadur in North Waziristan and Maulvi Nazeer in the south – will join hands with Mehsud. The three militant leaders, previously rivals, formed a tactical alliance earlier this year.

Mehsud also faces an internal challenge from a fellow tribesman, Qari Zainuddin. But Zainuddin has limited forces and is tainted in the eyes of some tribesmen by his supposed support from the army. A second, less significant, challenge to Mehsud comes from a commander called Turkistan, who controls territory in the neighboring Bhittani area.