'Time to Strike': Taliban in Disarray After Shootout Allegedly Claims Two Successors

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Aug. 8, 2009 — -- Three days after a CIA drone strike killed the head of the Taliban in Pakistan, his two most likely successors apparently killed each other when they opened fire at a meeting to decide the next commander, according to initial reports provided to Pakistani intelligence officials.

Hakimullah and Wali Ur Rehman were both killed, a senior military official said, during a shootout in South Waziristan. The two were attending a tribal meeting, or shura, designed to choose the successor of Taliban in Pakistan chief Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed early Wednesday morning.

The incident could throw a Taliban already suffering from internal clashes into disarray. It also eliminated the two most popular choices to lead the group responsible for the worst terrorist attacks in the country's history.

But the Taliban denied that the incident took place and Rehman Malik, the country's interior minister, told local television channels that he believed only one of the two commanders died in the gun battle.

Either way, the infighting is a direct result of the most significant strike on a militant commander in years.

Publicly, the Pakistani government has criticized the strikes from unmanned aerial drones, such as the one that killed Mehsud.

But privately they have provided significantly expanded intelligence help to the United States since last summer, Pakistani officials admit. Combined with increased targeting technology, the drone attacks became much more accurate, and the Bush administration increased their number.

Pakistani officials say, by early this year, the targets changed, shifting mainly from al Qaeda leadership and commanders most responsible for attacks in Afghanistan to the Pakistani Taliban.

Pakistani officials had been complaining that the United States was not targeting Mehsud; by this summer, the strikes had focused almost entirely on him. Nine of the last 10 strikes, according to an ABC News tally, targeted Mehsud or his network.

The change in targets and the successful targeting of Mehsud has led Pakistani officials to celebrate his death, even if it came from a missile fired from an American drone flying in Pakistani airspace.