US issues indictment against Pakistani Taliban leader

The U.S. is taking steps to provide legal justification for its use of military force in Pakistan. The State Department added the Pakistani Taliban to its official list of terrorist organizations, imposing new economic sanctions on the group. And the Justice Department brought an indictment against Hakimullah Mehsud, a leader of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan. But legal experts say that doesn’t mean they’re pursuing him only in the courts. The U.S. military has been trying to kill Mehsud with drone strikes for years. Tanya Snyder has more.

TRANSCRIPT

When you hear that Hakimullah Mehsud has been indicted, your first response might be:

SCOTT HORTON: Isn’t that guy dead?

Scott Horton is an expert in human rights law and a contributing editor at Harpers Magazine.

HORTON: I think their preferred solution is simply to kill him. Of course they’ve always had to deal with the possibility that he might survive an attack or that he might be captured and not killed. And what do you do with him in that case?  And I think the indictment is to cover this sort of fallback perspective.

The U.S. military claimed they’d killed Hakimullah Mehsud in a drone attack in January, but then he resurfaced in May. Mehsud is the leader of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan or TTP.

The Justice Department alleges that last December, a suicide bomber killed seven U.S. citizens and injured six more at a CIA operating base on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Before the attack, the bomber taped a video message with Hakimullah Mehsud in which they talk about their plans and their motivation for attacking U.S. targets. According to the complaint filed against Mehsud, he explains in the video that the attack is retaliation for the death of the TTP’s previous leader, Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed a year ago.

Letta Tayler works in the Terrorism/Counterterrorism Program at Human Rights Watch. She says human rights groups have been pressuring the Obama administration to provide legal justifications for its drone strikes, like the ones against Mehsud.

LETTA TAYLER: We welcome any measure that the U.S. takes that provides additional legal explanation and transparency for its programs to counter terrorism. However, in and of itself, the indictment doesn’t mean that taking Hakimullah Mehsud out with a drone is or is not legal.

The indictment, which was filed August twentieth but just unsealed Thursday, accuses Mehsud of conspiracy to murder U.S. citizens abroad and conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction against U.S. citizens abroad. Scott Horton says calling a suicide bomb a weapon of mass destruction is hyperbole.

HORTON: I’d say it’s a case of prosecutors using the term in a way other than it’s used by normal speakers of the English language.

This week, it was also revealed that Mehsud was named a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, and the U.S. State Department added the TTP to the list of terrorist organizations. The TTP was added last month but that was also revealed only this week when it was published in the Federal Register.  Aside from the attack at the CIA base, the TTP is accused of crimes ranging from the assassination of Benazir Bhutto to the botched attempt to blow up a car bomb in Times Square in May.

Bobby Chesney is a law professor at the University of Texas, specializing in national security issues. He says the designation of the Pakistani Taliban as a terrorist group is no surprise and doesn’t signify any increased hostilities. In fact, he says it could mean just the opposite.

CHESNEY: In fact a lot of people would say, is this somehow a sign that we’re switching to more of a sanctions and prosecution model. And some people will be concerned that it points away from warfare.

The designation makes it illegal to provide material support to the organization, and bars its members from traveling to the U.S. Chesney says it didn’t make sense that the U.S. was launching drone strikes against members of the Pakistani Taliban before even explaining that the U.S. government sees it as a terrorist organization. Chesney says the use of economic sanctions power should have been used a long time ago.

Tanya Snyder, FSRN