White House still under Taliban threat?

The Pakistani NNI news agency reported today that at least 443 militants in northwest Pakistan have been killed in 37 U.S. drone attacks during the last 9 months.

Drone attacks. They serve as a continual reminder of the threat from Baitullah Mahsud, the former commander of the Pakistani Taliban, who said they would retaliate for U.S. missile strikes against militants along the Afghan border.

"Soon we will launch an attack in Washington that will amaze everyone in the world," Mehsud told The Associated Press by phone five months ago.

In an interview with local Dewa Radio, which was obtained by The Associated Press, Mehsud identified the White House as one of the targets.

Does Washington remain in the sights of the Taliban?

Much has happened since those threats:

In August, Baitullah Mahsud himself was mortally wounded during a U.S. drone attack and died several days later. [Who will receive the $5 million bounty offered by the U.S. State Department?]

Taliban commander Hakeemullah Mehsud at a press conference in Peshawar in 2008.

Baitullah's senior deputy, Hakeemullah Mehsud, has been appointed the new leader of the Taliban in Pakistan. He immediately chimed in with a threat of his own. "We will take revenge [for Baitullah] and soon," he, told AFP. "We will give our reply to this drone attack to America."

In light of these events, how concerned should the White House be? How credible is this new threat?

Speaking of Baitullah Mehsud, James Phillips, a terrorism expert and senior research fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Heritage Foundation claimed, "It's not too much of a stretch to think he might be involved in an attack on the U.S. if he's able to get his followers inside the United States. The U.S. government ... cannot afford to ignore this threat because he has acted on targets in the past." [Baitullah had been directly implicated in the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.]

Phillips said Mehsud is less of a direct threat to the U.S. than bin Laden in an ideological sense, but his influence in Pakistan could allow him to tap into existing networks within Al Qaeda or among Afghan Taliban militants to achieve his goals. [source FOX News]

It is possible that Baitullah's "amazing attack" plan is still a go but, only time will tell whether Pakistan's new Taliban commander will prove as lethal as his late cousin.

Given that Hakeemullah Mehsud trains children to be suicide bombers, one can conclude that whatever his plans, if successful, will be merciless.

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In another segment of this video, Michael Griffin, author of Reaping the Whirlwind: The Taliban Movement in Afghanistan, discusses the connections between al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan.