Taliban Denies Leader Is Dead; Claims Twitter Account Was Down

A senior commander in the Pakistani Taliban has denied reports that the group's leader was killed in a US missile strike in South Waziristan, claiming instead that the leader's Twitter account was momentarily down.

Haikmullah Mehsud told reporters by telephone on Saturday that Baitullah Mehsud, the Taliban leader the US had supposedly killed, was "perfectly fine and would begin tweeting again soon."

"No missile has gotten anywhere near him," Mr. Mehsud said. "Like the rest of us, he has been highly frustrated by Twitter outages."

The Taliban commander said that his leader's iPhone was in "perfect working condition," and that he had just installed "the awesome new Jihad app." More here.

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