Pakistan says it is trying to confirm new reports on state television that Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud has been killed by a US drone strike, as the militia again denied his death.
Speculation about the warlord's death first surfaced after a January 14 bombing by unmanned US planes in the Taliban stronghold of North Waziristan, but within days Mehsud released two audio statements denying his demise.
Security officials said at the time he may have been wounded.
On Sunday state television station PTV, citing unnamed sources, reported Mehsud had been buried on Friday in the northwestern tribal district of Orakzai.
"I don't have the confirmation, my sources have not confirmed it, whether he is dead or alive," chief military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told AFP on Sunday, adding that the report was being investigated.
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Interior Minister Rehman Malik told private television channel ARY News the government was also trying to verify the report.
"We are hearing this news for so many days. We have received this news from various sources that he has been killed," Malik said.
"But I will say that we have no verifiable information from which we can confirm that he is dead, but the local elders and local population, they are saying that he has been buried."
The Taliban admitted after the January 14 strike that Mehsud was in the Shaktoi area where the missiles hit, but said he left about an hour beforehand. US officials said they had no information about his reported death.
The chief Taliban spokesman dismissed the reports again on Sunday.
"Hakimullah is alive and safe. The purpose of stories regarding his death is to create differences among Taliban ranks, but such people will never succeed," Azam Tariq told AFP by telephone from an unknown location.
Mehsud assumed leadership of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), blamed for the deaths of thousands of people in attacks, after previous leader Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a US drone strike in August last year.
The TTP denied Baitullah Mehsud's death for weeks, apparently amid fierce infighting over who would succeed him.
