ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Jan. 15 (UPI) -- Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud was injured in a U.S. airstrike on Taliban hideouts near Pakistan's South Waziristan, leaders said Friday.
U.S. aircraft launched a strike Thursday on Taliban hideouts near the border between North and South Waziristan in an operation targeting the leader of the Pakistani Taliban. His cousin and former leader, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed in an August airstrike by the U.S. military.
As many as 10 Taliban were killed in the attack. Local television reports said Mehsud was among those injured when a missile struck a compound in Shatkoi village, the Press Trust of India reports.
The report said Mehsud was being treated for head injuries, though his wounds are not considered life threatening.
Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said Friday that Islamabad was not certain if Mehsud was hit in the attacks.
Pakistan's Dawn newspaper, meanwhile, said Mehsud issued an audiotape Friday confirming he survived.
"Sometimes they (the government) launch a propaganda about my martyrdom," Mehsud said.
U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said in Islamabad last week that U.S. aerial strikes in Pakistan were vital to the success of the war strategy for Afghanistan.
"The attacks are imperative to defeat the enemy," he said.
Pakistan, for its part, is engaged in a fight against Taliban militants along the volatile border with Afghanistan, claiming the lives of nearly 1,000 militants since operations began in October.
