Top Taliban terrorist blows himself up in Pakistan

New Delhi: Top Taliban militant leader Abdullah Mehsud, who was wanted for the kidnappings of two Chinese engineers in 2004, today killed himself to avoid arrest in Pakistan's southwestern town of Zhob.

Mehsud, an ex-Guantanamo Bay inmate who returned to command pro-Taliban militants in Pakistan, blew himself up with a grenade when Pakistani security forces cornered him in his hideout in Balochistan province.

Three of his accomplices were arrested in the military operation, Interior Ministry Spokesman Iqbal Cheema said. He blew himself up to avoid arrest at Zhob in Balochistan, Cheema said.

“My information is that Abdullah Mehsud killed himself,'' Zhob police chief Atta Mohammed was quoted as saying by The Associated Press. ''Thanks to God that only he was blown up and our men were safe.''

The one-legged militant was released from the US jail for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in March 2004 after he was captured in Afghanistan fighting for the Taliban.

He quickly took up arms again, and became a leader of militants in the South Waziristan region on the Afghan border, and was wanted for the kidnapping of two Chinese engineers later that year.

One of the Chinese, who had been working on a dam project, was killed while the other was rescued alive in an operation by Pakistani commandos.

A Pakistani intelligence official said Mehsud was intercepted on his way back from Afghanistan's Helmand province, where the official said he led supporters fighting alongside the Taliban against Afghan and U.S. forces.

The intelligence official, who is not authorized to speak on the record to reporters, said Mehsud had been in Afghanistan for more than a year and that there was no evidence that he organized the recent violence in Pakistan.

Officials said the house in Zhob, where three other men were arrested, belonged to Sheikh Mohammed Ayub and that he was not at home at the time.

Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, a federal lawmaker for the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, said Ayub had been expelled from the pro-Taliban party about four months earlier for ''suspicious activities and violating party discipline.'' He declined to elaborate.

(With AP inputs)