PESHAWAR, Pakistan, (Reuters) - Pakistan’s Taliban  denied a report yesterday that their leader Hakimullah Mehsud  had been killed in a U.S. drone aircraft strike.

“It is a total lie,” a spokesman for the group told Reuters  by telephone from northwest Pakistan, referring to a report on  Pakistani state television.
Pakistan’s military said earlier it was investigating the  report that Hakimullah died from wounds sustained in a drone  attack and had been buried in the Orakzai tribal region in the  northwest of the country.

“We’re inquiring further but so far there’s no  confirmation,” said army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas.
Hakimullah’s death would likely create disarray in  Pakistan’s al Qaeda-linked Taliban, analysts say, but it would  not deal a major long-term blow to the group, which is fighting  to topple the pro-American government.
State television did not give dates for the drone attack.

Pakistani intelligence officials said they had received  unconfirmed reports that Hakimullah, the number one enemy of the  Pakistani state, may have died of wounds after a drone strike on  two vehicles carrying militants in North Waziristan on Jan. 17,  days after surviving a similar attack.

Hakimullah appeared in a farewell video with the suicide  bomber double agent who killed seven CIA employees in  Afghanistan on Dec. 30.
The footage suggested his Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP),  Taliban Movement of Pakistan, which has focused on fighting  Pakistan’s government, had become more sophisticated, taking  part in the second deadliest attack in the CIA’s history.

Pakistan’s Taliban issued an audio tape on Jan 16.  purportedly from Hakimullah denying he was killed in a U.S.  drone strike two days earlier.
The intelligence officials said reports indicated Hakimullah was taken to Orakzai tribal region after the drone attack on the  two vehicles, and that he may have been killed or wounded.

Washington sees Pakistan as a frontline state in its war  against militancy and wants it to go after Afghan Taliban groups  who cross the border and attack Western forces in Afghanistan.

But Pakistan says it does not have enough resources to open  new fronts against militants and must concentrate on homegrown  Taliban insurgents seeking to impose their austere form of  Islamic rule in nuclear-armed Pakistan.