A setback for the Taliban

A U.S. drone strike last week apparently killed the powerful head of Pakistan’s Taliban, sparking a violent power struggle among his commanders. Baitullah Mehsud, Pakistan’s Public Enemy No. 1, was considered responsible for the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and dozens of other deadly attacks in Pakistan. U.S. and Pakistani officials said they were virtually certain that he was killed in a strike on his father-in-law’s house in South Waziristan, though the Taliban denied that. Analysts said the death would disrupt terrorist operations within Pakistan, while striking a psychological blow against the Taliban’s main ally, al Qaida.

A few days after the drone attack, Taliban commanders flocked to the tribal area, possibly to choose a successor to Mehsud, and Pakistani intelligence reported that at least 70 people were killed in clashes between rival militants. There’s “a major rift among the ranks,” said Pakistan’s former Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider.

Killing Mehsud marks “a notable victory in the war on terror,”

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said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. “The fashionable view in anti-anti-terror precincts is that terror leaders are like daisies—mow one down and another will pop up.” But Mehsud was a charismatic figure who united more than a dozen Taliban factions into a single deadly force. His demise shows the effectiveness of the drone strikes inside Pakistan—a Bush policy that President Obama has wisely continued.

“Like a mafia family whose don has just been whacked,” said Nick Schifrin in ABCnews.com, the Pakistani Taliban is in a state of upheaval. If al Qaida’s Arab leaders take over the network, more terrorist attacks against U.S. targets would be sure to follow. If Mullah Omar, the head of the Afghan Taliban, gets one of his cronies installed, more militants would flow into Afghanistan. “That could make Pakistan safer, but make the war in Afghanistan more dangerous.”

Either way, it will take more than force to stabilize Pakistan, said The New York Times. Bombing Pakistan’s tribal areas only goes so far. As a presidential candidate, Obama pledged to give Pakistan billions in aid to help “build up its civil society—the schools, courts, hospitals, and roads that are essential to stability.” Yet as president, he has failed to press Congress to authorize the aid. “It is time to show the Pakistani people that the United States has more to offer than missile strikes and empty promises.”