PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN, AND ISTANBUL, TURKEY — Baitullah Mahsud, the leader of Pakistan's Taliban movement, threatened Tuesday to launch attacks in the United States in retaliation for missile strikes by American drones aimed at militant leaders sheltering in Pakistan's tribal areas.
In an unusual step, the normally reclusive Mahsud personally made a round of telephone calls to news media representatives claiming responsibility for an audacious commando-style strike on a police training school near the eastern city of Lahore a day earlier. In those calls, he also threatened to widen his campaign of attacks.
"Our mission is to continue jihad in Afghanistan and Pakistan and to avenge drone attacks, even inside America," he told a representative of The Times. Asked about a $5-million American bounty on his head, he replied, "Martyrdom is our aim, and we would be very happy if we could achieve it."
U.S. and Pakistani intelligence officials have said Mahsud and his organization, thought to have links to Al Qaeda, are under increasing pressure as a result of the American missile strikes in Pakistan's tribal areas, which have escalated sharply over the last six months. Several recent raids in Mahsud's stronghold, in South Waziristan, have killed some of his close associates.
The Associated Press reported that a suspected U.S. drone missile attack killed at least 12 people today in the tribal region, according to intelligence officials. Two missiles targeted a suspected militant hide-out in the Orakzai area, near the Afghan border, the officials said.
Mahsud is blamed by the Pakistani government for dozens of suicide bombings and other attacks, including the December 2007 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. He has denied responsibility for Bhutto's killing.
Although Mahsud's campaign of violence is aimed primarily at the Pakistani government, some fighters loyal to him have crossed into Afghanistan for attacks against Western troops battling an insurgency there.
In Washington, intelligence officials downplayed Mahsud's threats, describing them as attention-grabbing assertions from a militant whose network does not extend beyond the region around Pakistan.
"He is a tribal leader that has probably some regional influence," a senior U.S. counter-terrorism official said, discussing internal assessments on condition of anonymity. "Beyond that, I think it's a lot of boasting on his part."
