Rival to Pakistan Taliban chief Mehsud killed

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2009

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) — A Pakistani Taliban faction leader aligned against the militant group's feared chief Baitullah Mehsud has been shot dead, police said, ahead of an army offensive into Mehsud's northwest base.

Qari Zainuddin, a 26-year-old rising tribesman who was increasingly critical of Mehsud's use of suicide bombings targeting civilians, was killed at a house he used as an office in the northwestern town of Dera Ismail Khan.

The assassination comes a week after the army said it was extending an offensive against militants in the northwest into the lawless tribal belt along the Afghan border -- a campaign Zainuddin told local media he would back.

Also Tuesday, a suspected US missile strike hit a Mehsud stronghold killing six people in the tribal South...