Islamabad, Aug 8 - Pakistan Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, said to be responsible for the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, was not killed in a US drone attack but is in hiding as part of a 'strategy', a spokesman for the group said Saturday.

Speaking to an Arabic TV channel, Tahreek-e-Taliban spokesman Hakeemullah Mehsud, a close relative of the militant leader, said a videotape would soon be released to prove that Mehsud was alive.

'Baitullah has gone into hiding as a part of a strategy and he is not in contact with anyone after the drone attack,' the spokesman said.

Queried about Mehsud's presence in his father-in-law's house at the time of the attack, the spokesman said living in one's in-laws house was against Pashtoon tradition and the militant leader was not present in the building at the time of the attack.

On Friday, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi confirmed that Mehsud had been killed in a drone attack in South Waziristan Wednesday.

'He (Mehsud) has been taken out,' Qureshi told reporters here.

Saying that intelligence sources had confirmed Mehsud's death, he added that the government was verifying the situation on the ground 'to confirm 100 percent' this was true.

Intelligence officials said Mehsud was killed in a missile strike Wednesday on the home of his father-in-law and that his body was buried in the village of Nardusai in South Waziristan, not far from the site of the strike.