Baitullah Meshsud who has a $5 Million bounty on his head commands one of the many
pockets of Taliban fighters in the rugged terrain of the north western frontier region in Pakistan. The coalition forces have openly admitted that the biggest challenge facing them in Afghanistan is the cross border attacks being launched from save havens in Pakistan. The USA has tried many different tactics to control this infiltrations but without major success.A possibly relief for the USA may come in the form of a new tribal rivalry which has come to light where Baitullah Mehsud’s main rival Qari Zainuddin Mehsud has joined forces with a splinter group and has vowed to stop Baitullah in his tracks. The USA is seeking to exploit this new development and hoping to make arrangements similar to what we saw in Iraq in the form of the so called sons of Iraq awakening councils. For the time being, the task seems near impossible as the strength of Baitullah’s army is estimated to outnumber any rival tribe by at least a multiple of 4.