Emilio Morenatti / Associated Press Relatives of an officer killed in Monday’s assault on a police academy near Lahore mourn at his funeral. The Taliban commander in Pakistan, Baitullah Mahsud, claimed responsibility for the strike and threatened attacks in the U.S. Pakistan's Taliban leader threatens attacks in the U.S.
Reporting from Istanbul, Turkey, and Peshawar, Pakistan -- Baitullah Mahsud, the leader of Pakistan's Taliban movement, threatened Tuesday to launch attacks in the United States in retaliation for missile strikes by American drones aimed at militant leaders sheltering in Pakistan's tribal areas.
The Associated Press reported that a suspected U.S. drone missile attack killed at least 12 people today in the tribal region, according to intelligence officials. Two missiles targeted a suspected militant hide-out in the Orakzai area, near the Afghan border, the officials said.
In Washington, intelligence officials downplayed Mahsud's threats, describing them as attention-grabbing assertions from a militant whose network does not extend beyond the region around Pakistan.
The FBI sent a bulletin Tuesday evening to its field offices and state and local law enforcement agencies with information about Mahsud, said an FBI official familiar with the confidential communication. The bulletin discounted his U.S. threats, describing them as "aspirational."
Pakistani officials said eight police recruits and teachers were killed in the Lahore-area attack, though several witnesses said they had seen more bodies than that, and that they believed authorities were reluctant to disclose the full extent of the killings.
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