Taleban chief 'alive'

Pakistani Taleban chief Hakimullah Mehsud is now believed to have survived a United States missile strike earlier this year, but has lost clout within the militant network, a senior intelligence official said last night.

The revelation contradicts initial confidence among US and Pakistani intelligence officials that the brash militant leader had been killed in a mid-January missile attack in the Waziristan stretch of the northwest tribal belt bordering Afghanistan.

The Taleban consistently denied Mehsud was killed.