**The chief spokesman for the Taliban in Pakistan, who was arrested on Monday, has confirmed that the group’s leader is dead, Pakistani officials have said.**A minister from North West Frontier Province said Maulvi Omar had stated that Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a US drone attack earlier this month.
The Taliban had previously denied US and Pakistani reports that he was dead.
Maulvi Omar was arrested in the Mohmand tribal area while travelling to South Waziristan, near the Afghan border.
He was later questioned by Pakistani intelligence officials, whom he allegedly told that Mehsud was dead.
“Everybody knows that Maulvi Omar has been arrested. He was a spokesman for the Taliban,” Mian Iftikhar Hussain, North West Frontier Province’s information minister, told the AFP news agency.
“We will catch them all. All Taliban will have to face the same fate,” he said, adding that the latest detainee had been moved to the provincial capital, Peshawar.
“Intelligence agencies have given me information that Maulvi Omar has confirmed the death of Baitullah during interrogation,” he said.
Pakistani and US officials have said that Mehsud was killed - along with one of his wives - in a US missile strike on his father-in-law’s house in the Zangarha area, north-east of Ladha, on 5 August.
Despite both sides’ declarations, there has been no proof from the Taliban that Mehsud is alive or from the government that he is dead.
Believed to command as many as 20,000 pro-Taliban militants, Mehsud came to worldwide attention in the aftermath of the 2007 Red Mosque siege in Islamabad - in which the security forces confronted and forcibly ejected militant students loyal to him.
He has been blamed by both Pakistan and the US for a series of suicide bomb attacks in the country, as well as suicide attacks on Western forces across the border in Afghanistan.
Are you in the area How important is this development Are you affected by the issues in this story Send us your comments using the form below.