Pakistani Taliban pick new number two after drone strike: sources

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Pakistani Taliban pick new number two after drone strike: sources

By Saud Mehsud
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan | Thu May 30, 2013 6:17am EDT

(Reuters) - Pakistani Taliban militants have chosen a new deputy commander to replace their previous second-in-command who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in the North Waziristan region, sources in the militant group said on Thursday.

The previous deputy commander, Wali-ur-Rehman, was killed in an attack by a missile-firing U.S. drone aircraft in the militant stronghold of North Waziristan, on northwest Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, on Wednesday, Pakistani security officials and militants said.

A Pakistani Taliban committee met late on Wednesday to chose a new deputy after Wali-ur-Rehman was buried in a low-key ceremony, three Taliban members told Reuters.

The Taliban members said the new number two, Khan Said, 38, had served as Rehman's deputy. He was involved in planning a 2011 attack on a Pakistani navy base in Karachi in which 18 people were killed and a 2012 jail break in which nearly 400 militant inmates escaped, they said.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/30/us-pakistan-taliban-idUSBRE94T0BZ20130530

[JoePhilly]

1. They probably held a reverse lottery. If you win, you lose.

[gordianot]

2. Is there a finite potential of number 2's?

Whoever gets to label number 2's has a grim job. Number 3 must be feeling extra concern when they get number 2.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. They publicized the guy they picked????

That seems dumb.
unless of course they guy they named is not really #2 but some guy they want to see bumped off.
Maybe that's how taliban politics works.
" Do as we say or we will tell the US drone people you are #2".