[10] Mehsud was educated in a village madrassa, the Dar-ul-Uloom Shariah headed by Mufti Sarwar, in the Serwekai town of South Waziristan.

[11] According to a short seven-page autobiography he wrote, he was the eldest of nine siblings, having four brothers and four sisters, and was married twice, first to a fellow Mehsud and later to an Afridi from the Orakzai District, and in terms of religious activities he says he spent many months in a preaching mission with the Tablighi Jamaat.

[11] Journalists who met him generally described him as hospitable and humorous in everyday life[13] while Imtiaz Gul, head of the Center for Research and Security Studies, wrote in 2010 that "Hakimullah, more than six feet tall, radiates a certain charisma.

[9] He organised a series of raids against US military convoys between the summer of 2007 and the spring of 2008 that forced the closure of the Khyber Pass six times.

[16] Wali-ur-Rehman telephoned a Reuters reporter to say that Hakimullah is alive, and would be calling soon, and that the first shura where the shooting supposedly occurred never took place.

[22] On 2 November 2009 Pakistani authorities offered a Rs50 million ($600,000)[23] reward for information that lead to the capture or killing of Hakimullah Mehsud.

This meant not only religious minorities like the Ahmedi and the Shia Muslims, but also the Barelvi sect of Sunni Islam, which made up more than half of the population of Pakistan, and is known for its Sufi activities.

[34] On 1 November 2013, a senior Taliban source confirmed that a US drone strike in Pakistan killed Mehsud in the village of Dande Darpa Khel in North Waziristan.

[35] At the time of his death, he was living in a farmhouse worth $120 000, equipped with marble floors, green lawns and a tall minaret, where he used to grow apples, oranges, grapes and pomegranates.