Islamabad - Around ten thousand tribesmen on Wednesday attended the burial ceremony of the top Pakistani militant commander who killed himself during a police raid the day before. Dozens of armed pro-Taliban fighters and followers of Abdullah Mehsud offered a gun-salute with rocket launchers as his body was brought for the burial ceremony in Barund Bazar in the semi-autonomous tribal area of South Waziristan, Geo news channel reported.
He was later buried in his family graveyard at his home village of Nano Kaley.
Mehsud, 32, blew himself up early Tuesday in the town of Zhob in Balochistan province when the local police laid siege to the house he was staying at on a tip-off that rebels with suspected links with the Taliban and al-Qaeda were inside the compound.
Several hundred Islamic militants he commanded in South Waziristan have launched cross border attacks on US-led forces in the Afghanistan province of Helmand.
The Islamic fighters attending the burial ceremony vowed to revenge the death of their leader as they chanted slogans "Death to America."
The Taliban commander, who lost one leg to a landmine explosion, was released from Guantanamo Bay prison in March 2004 after 25 months detention.
Immediately after his release, he joined the local Taliban in the tribal area and kidnapped two Chinese engineers in 2004, one of whom died in a commando assault launched to free the hostages.
Mehsud's death came at a time when security forces stationed in the lawless tribal region bordering Afghanistan are facing consistent attacks, including suicide bombings, at the hands of militants enraged by this month's military operation against a radical mosque in the capital Islamabad.
