Who is he and what are his beliefs?
Ruthless campaigner with his penchant for media publicity, Hakimullah is around 27 years of age and considered as one of the closest lieutenants of the killed Taliban commander, Baitullah Mehsud. Hakimullah was responsible for TTP operations in Khyber and Orakzai agencies where until recently he spent most of his time. He is also known for his ruthless anti-Shia campaign in Kurram agency, where the presence of TTP zealots has been wreaking havoc on the Shia minority Pashtuns. Many media personnel met him in Orakzai agency in the last week of November 2008 and saw a deputy emerging for Baitullah Mehsud. It was in this meeting when he said that Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari was in his hit-list along with many other government officials for their ‘pro-American’ policies.

Hakimullah, over six feet tall, radiates a certain charisma, and has also threatened on occasion to cut off supplies to American forces in Afghanistan if U.S. drone attacks continued. His people also displayed one of the two American Humvee military vehicles they had hijacked in Khyber Agency on November 10, 2008. He also accused members of the central and provincial governments of ‘working to break up Pakistan in collaboration with the US.’ That is why Hakimullah men not only unleashed a string of vicious attacks on the US-NATO military cargo vehicles destined for Afghanistan, particularly between November 2007 and March 2009, but also conducted several suicide attacks across Pakistan. Hakimullah owned up many of these attacks, which involved TTP-trained bombers.

He studied in a madrassa for some years but didn–t graduate as a mullah but rose to the level of becoming a Taliban commander and led nearly 4,000 Taliban fighters in Orakzai, Kurram and Khyber agencies. Hakimullah closest contender was Waliur Rahman, cousin of Baitullah and equally ruthless and now is commanding Taliban fighters in South Waziristan.

Hakimullah confirmed Baitullah death:
By confirming Baitullah Mehsud death in an August 5 drone attack on the house of his father-in-law in the Zangara village of South Waziristan, his apparent successor Hakimullah Mehsud has finally put to rest the confusion and speculation surrounding the fate of the amir. A couple of days after the August 5 attack on Baitullah, Hakimullah had claimed he would soon release a video of the TTP chief to prove that he was alive. But on August 25, Hakimullah called some Peshawar-based journalists to confirm the death of Baitullah Mehsud. In this phone call, Hakimullah insisted the drone attack had left Baitullah Mehsud critically injured and sent him into a coma. He could not recover and eventually died ‘two days ago,’ Hakimullah told reporters over phone from an undisclosed location. Hakimullah also insisted he had been unanimously made the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief by its shura (Consultative Council), or leadership council, while Maulana Wali ur-Rehman was named leader of the Mehsud Taliban in South Waziristan. He denied that there are any differences between himself and Waliur Rehman over the TTP leadership, contradicting the last few weeks of confusing announcements and proclamations from different spokesmen and leaders. Although Wali ur-Rehman, another Mehsud contestant for the top slot, also confirmed Hakimullah Mehsud as the new TTP chief, based on some intelligence and confidential sources – and in light of the extremely limited access to the embattled area – the issue of succession remains shrouded in controversy.

Pakistani-American security services on the look:
As far the Pakistani security agencies go, they still appear to be working to benefit from the visible disarray within the TTP and keep them divided as possible. It will be interesting to see who succeeds ´ the Pakistani agencies, who see a fragmented TTP as a more manageable threat, or al Qaeda and its Afghan affiliates, who would leave no stone unturned to reunify all TTP factions into the same lethal entity that it was under Baitullah Mehsud. In essence, the so-called TTP-led ‘Jihad against the Americans’ is likely to continue under Hakimullah Mehsud. Wali ur-Rehman also made this clear in his August 23 interview with the AP. But only time will tell to what extent has Baitullah death dented this resolve and made the job easier for the Pakistani and U.S. forces in their struggles to whittle them down through a precise intelligence-based campaign in the Waziristan region.

Hakimullah will ‘work hard:’
A majority of FATA-watchers, who understand the making of Hakimullah since his days of Jihad with Taliban, apprehend that Hakimullah will be ruthless and will try to unleash a new wave of terror against Pakistan and the NATO/US forces in Afghanistan. The effectiveness of Pakistani Taliban in Afghanistan is somewhat questionable but their attacks on mainland Pakistan had created social panic, fear and breakdown of State institutions. Molvi Faqeer, also known as Ustade Fidayeen (Leader of the Intrepid), is considered extremely close to Hakimullah. Molvi Faqeer is the expert trainer of suicide bombers and has been running the campaign of terror on the orders of Baitullah Mehsud. His scheme of terror is expected to grow manifold under Hakimullah if Pakistani security and intelligence services do not bolster their coordination and activities against Taliban. ‘The best way to counter Taliban menace is to keep running after them to keep them on the run,’ said a government official and explained that the Pakistani government was committed to root out the terrorism from Pakistan soil. Hakimullah Mehsud and his comrades will work extremely hard to prove that Baitullah death might have dented the Taliban but their spate of terror will continue. Both sides will work hard against each other and the results of either side success could only be seen in just a couple of months to come.