TTP confirms image released on social media is Mehsud’s

PESHWAR: Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan has confirmed an image released on the social media is of its slain leader Hakimullah Mehsud captured just before his burial, Geo News reported Monday.

The image, which shows, through the opening of the shroud, the bearded face of the former TTP chief with stains of blood and coagulated nosebleed, was released across the social media on Monday.

According to sources in the TTP, Mehsud’s abdomen and chest were badly wounded after a Hellfire missile shot from an unmanned US spy plane struck his vehicle outside his $120,000 farmhouse.

“The attack left his torso severely damaged, which ultimately became the cause of his death”, said the sources.

Analysts say the TTP has released the image on the social media so that his followers and sympathizers could have an Akhri Deedar (Seeing the face of the dead for the last time before burial).

Mehsud, was killed in a US drone strike in the North Waziristan tribal region on Friday.

Intelligence officials said the TTP top gun was leaving for a meeting at a mosque in Dande Darpakhel area of North Waziristan when the drone targeted the vehicle he was travelling in, killing at least six people.