Baitullah Mehsud, unlike other militant leaders, made the Pakistan government his target, using suicide attacks and assassinations to shake the foundations of this country, LAT reported.
Mehsud, reportedly killed in a CIA missile attack this week, expanded militant attacks beyond the lawless tribal regions, wreaking death and destruction in the country's major cities and angering a Pakistani leadership that had long tolerated other militant groups.
That transformed the diminutive, bearded Mehsud into the most feared militant in the country - a ruthless figure with links to al-Qaida and to the leadership of the Taliban across the border in Afghanistan.
"Mehsud has been atop the target list of the Pakistani military for some time," said Alexander Neill, head of the Asia security program at the Royal United Services Institute, a defense think tank in London.
Conversely, he didn't appear to be high on the U.S. list, at least until recently. Three times in two years, the Americans turned down Pakistani requests to target Mehsud, according to a former Pakistani security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release information to media.
While U.S. officials would not comment directly on the Pakistani assertion, they said Mehsud has been a target for some time although there may have been targeting disagreements in the past.
A U.S. counterterrorism official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters said that there are sometimes conflicts over tactics, even as the broader goals remain the same.
Earlier this year, however, U.S. drones began repeatedly striking Mehsud's territory in Pakistan's South Waziristan region. In March, the U.S. government announced a $5 million reward for Mehsud.
"Before they were targeting North Waziristan and not here in Mehsud's area," Pakistan's military spokesman Gen. Athar Abbas said in an interview.
U.S. officials have long complained that the Pakistanis were reluctant to crack down on militant groups operating in the lawless northwest. The U.S. was especially concerned about groups such as those led by Maulvi Naseer Wazir in South Waziristan, Hafiz Gul Bahadur in North Waziristan or the Haqqani group because of their roles in fighting U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
For the most part, Mehsud's operations were focused in Pakistan. As a result, for Pakistan, Mehsud was the biggest threat.
Mehsud's fighters drove the Pakistani army from much of South Waziristan following a failed peace agreement in February 2005.
It was the July 2007 showdown at the militant-controlled Red Mosque in Islamabad that marked a watershed in Mehsud's relations with the Pakistani government. Hardline students barricaded themselves inside the mosque, triggering an eight-day siege that ended in gunbattles that left 102 dead by official accounts.
Mehsud then formally declared war on his own country. In the wake of the assault, Mehsud and the Taliban, which had previously attacked targets only in the tribal regions, extended their reach countrywide.
In the year that followed the Red Mosque assault, 4,300 people, including more than 700 security officials, died in violent attacks, most of them suicide assaults, across the country, according to local newspaper counts.
Mehsud was blamed for the December 2007 assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, although he denied involvement. He has been linked to some of the deadliest bombings in Pakistan, including the 2008 suicide attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad and the explosion last June that destroyed the Pearl Continental Hotel in Peshawar.
The U.S. shift toward greater attention to Mehsud may have followed a secret American-Pakistani strategy session held in August 2008 on an aircraft carrier off Pakistan.
Weeks later, a Pakistan government official said the two countries had agreed to a shared set of targets in western Pakistan. The United States agreed to go after militant tribal leaders who threatened Pakistan's stability- among them Mehsud- and Pakistan would target al-Qaida operatives.
Pakistani authorities have vowed to continue the fight against Mehsud's group even if the leader is gone. Still, it remains unclear whether Mehsud's death will mark a turning point in U.S.-Pakistani cooperation or in Pakistan's ambivalent relationship to religious extremist groups.
Pakistan nurtured the Taliban in Afghanistan for years before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and has worked closely with militant groups fighting the Indians in Kashmir. Although those ties may be loosening, the Islamabad government is willing to deal with hard-liners when it feels it's in its interests.
Take the case of Maulvi Naseer, a Taliban leader from North Waziristan. While the U.S. was trying to hunt him down, Pakistani soldiers were fighting alongside his men to drive hundreds of al-Qaida-linked Uzbeks out of Pakistan in 2007.
The Americans say Naseer sends his fellow tribesmen across the border to fight U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The U.S. has badgered Pakistan to take action against Naseer without success. Naseer has said he has no quarrel with Pakistan.
"We are operating on a priority basis and Maulvi Naseer is not at the moment on the priority list," Abbas, the Pakistan military spokesman, said. "First we have to complete the task given to us by the government, which is to take out Baitullah Mehsud and the network which was threatening the state."
If Mehsud is dead, U.S. and NATO officials will be watching to see if the Pakistanis actually move against his network and whether his organization can survive the death of its charismatic leader.
"Although it is a major achievement for counter-terrorist and insurgency operations in the area, it probably needs to be accompanied by wider strikes against his militant network," Neill said.
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