Daily Archive

A  paradigm for reading news and following events that should really become more popular.  Triangulation.  That grab the same story from several feeds and see what is reported and emphasized and more importantly, what is *not* reported in the story in question.

In our case we have the instance of Hakimullah Mehsud either being allegedly dead or really just doing fine.  The answer depends on whether you look at the report from the CBC, or the report from English Al-Jazeera.

The CBC says:

“The militant leader’s death would be an important success for both Pakistan, which has been battling the Pakistani Taliban, and the U.S., which blames Mehsud for a recent deadly bombing against the CIA in Afghanistan.

The army’s disclosure came shortly after Pakistani state television, citing unnamed “official sources,” reported that Mehsud died in Orakzai, an area in Pakistan’s northwest tribal region where he was reportedly being treated for his injuries.

“We have these reports coming to us,” army spokesman Gen. Athar Abbas told The Associated Press. “We are investigating whether it is true or wrong.”

Versus

Al-Jazeera:

“There has been a call to a local television station and Qari Hussein, a senior commander of the Pakistani Taliban, is said to have denied reports of the death of Hakimullah Mehsud,” Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said.

“There is no concrete evidence to suggest that Hakimullah Mehsud is dead, but there is also some suspicion because there has been no video message to prove that he is alive.”

The AFP news agency reported that a senior Taliban spokesman had said that Mehsud was “alive and safe”.

Now, it is hard to evaluate who has a more accurate reports, as who has information about the sources.  We have to base much of our news on the veracity of sources that we cannot easily verify.

So is the Taliban leader alive or dead?  Who do you believe?