Islamabad, Aug 30 (DPA) Hakimullah Mehsud, who has been chosen as the new leader of the Pakistani Taliban, rose swiftly to the top echelons of the militant group through acts of relentless brutality and profound ruthlessness. Known as a man with a lively smile and quick wits, 29-year-old Hakimullah in recent years led a squad of 75 executioners whose main task was to carry out beheadings of opponents, defectors, alleged spies and captives.

The slaughter was aimed at strengthening the terror regime of his predecessor, Baitullah Mehsud, who died in a US drone attack in early August.

In private chats with fellow militants, Hakimullah, who is no relation to Baitullah, takes pride in telling stories of how he slit throats of 'dozens of infidels and hypocrites' and 'dispatched them to hell'.

The biography of the new Taliban leader, which is known through intelligence and Taliban sources, begins in Kotkai village near Jandola town in the north-western tribal region of South Waziristan, where he was born.

Hakimullah, whose original name is Jamshid Mehsud, spent his early years at an Islamic seminary in the Hangu district where he joined the student wing of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, a religious political party of Deobandi Sunni Muslims.

Later, he joined with the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), an extremist Sunni group believed to be behind hundreds of killings of minority Shiite Muslims over more than the past two decades.

After proving his skills with guns and bombs at a local terrorist training centre, Hakimullah headed for jihad against US-led international forces in Afghanistan early this decade. Months of fighting polished his skills as a guerrilla fighter.

Well-built and energetic, the militant joined his fellow clansman Baitullah on his return from Afghanistan and served as his bodyguard, chauffeur and later as his spokesman with a mock identity of Zulfiqar Mehsud.

But the photogenic fighter achieved prominence in late 2007 when he led a couple of dozen militants in seizing 300 Pakistani military and paramilitary troops in South Waziristan - a spectacular raid that raised serious questions about Islamabad's capability to fight the Taliban in its ungoverned tribal belt along the Afghan border.

The Pakistani government had to release 29 militants, some high-profile Taliban leaders, in exchange for the soldiers.

From then on, there was no stopping the ambitious Hakimullah.

When Baitullah brought together 13 Taliban groups in Pakistan's tribal region and the neighbouring North-West Frontier Province to turn them into an organised fighting force under the umbrella of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in 2007, he appointed Hakimullah as the commander in Khyber, Orakzai and Kurram - three of the tribal region's seven districts.

Hakimullah fit well into this new, powerful role.