The videos emerged after an attempted car bombing in New York City, for which his faction claimed responsibility in a third video, and provided the most substantial evidence so far that he survived a US attempt on his life.

Mehsud threatened to retaliate against the United States for the killing of Islamist militant leaders, appearing in a nine-minute video allegedly made on April 4, after his supposed death in January.

The videos spotlight the Islamist militant threat in nuclear-armed Pakistan, which the United States has put on the front line of the war on Al-Qaeda and where Pakistani troops have waged multiple offensives against the Taliban.

"The time is very near when our fedayeen will attack the American states in the major cities," said Mehsud, who was seen flanked by two armed and masked men in the video released by the SITE and IntelCenter monitoring groups.

The video is the first showing Mehsud since January and was issued on the heels of a claim by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan that it was behind the attempted bombing in New York's Time Square on Saturday.

US officials believed Mehsud was likely killed in a US drone strike in northwestern Pakistan on January 14, but the Taliban denied his death and Pakistani intelligence officials said last week that he had survived.

The Islamist leader, who took over leadership of the TTP last August, rubbished reports of his death as an "open lie and propaganda".

"Inshaallah (God willing) very soon in some days or a month's time, the Muslim ummah (world) will see the fruits of most successful attacks of our fedayeen in USA," Mehsud said.

He made similar remarks in an audio message in another TTP video that was apparently recorded on April 19 and features Mehsud's face next to a map of the United States showing multiple explosions across the country.

IntelCenter, a US-based group that monitors Islamist websites, said it believed all the TTP videos issued since the New York bomb scare were credible and said there was a "high threat of further attack" in days and weeks ahead.

But the authorities in New York discounted an Al-Qaeda link and police said they were hunting a white man seen near the bomb in Times Square.

The TTP claim of responsibility also met with scepticism in Pakistan, where the military has claimed the faction's capability was dented following an offensive against its South Waziristan nerve centre last year.

If the allegation -- made by the TTP's master trainer of suicide bombers Qari Hussain and broadcast in a video on YouTube -- was authenticated, it would be the first attack by the TTP against a target in the United States.

Mehsud assumed leadership of Pakistan's Taliban, which is blamed for the deaths of thousands of people in attacks at home, after his predecessor Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a US drone strike in August 2009.

The January US missile attack was launched after Mehsud appeared in a video alongside the Jordanian double agent who blew himself up on a US base in eastern Afghanistan in December that killed seven CIA agents.

Islamabad has offered a reward of 50 million rupees (about 590,000 dollars) for information leading to the militant's capture, dead or alive.

Mehsud, believed to be aged about 31, also warned members of NATO and other allies to abandon the United States, telling them: "You will face even worse humiliation, destruction and defeat than America itself."

The videos coincided with a visit to Pakistan by General David Petraeus, the commander of the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, who held talks with Pakistan's army chief of staff General Ashfaq Kayani, officials said.

The Pentagon said last week Mehsud was no longer running the TTP.

Rahimullah Yusufzai, one of Pakistan's most prominent experts on the tribal belt where the Taliban are holed up, said the emergence of Mehsud in the videos was embarrassing for the US and Pakistani security establishments.

"He and the TTP are closely now aligned with Al-Qaeda and they're making efforts for joint attacks, so he should be taken seriously. Although I don't think he alone or TTP has the capacity to launch attacks in the US," he said.

Meanwhile, a US drone strike on Monday killed two militants in a vehicle in Marcikhel, an Al-Qaeda and Taliban stronghold in Pakistan's northwest tribal belt, local security officials said.

Commentary: Pakistani homegrown extremists
by Arnaud De Borchgrave
Washington (UPI) May 3, 2010 - Pakistan is still producing an estimated 10,000 potential jihadis a year out of 500,000 graduates from Pakistan's 11,000 madrassas -- young gung-ho boys, mostly 16-year-olds, who finish 10 years of Koranic cramming and who can then recite the holy book by heart in Arabic. That means 114 suras (chapters), 6.247 ayats (verses), or 78,000 words.

A true green jihadi believes the enemies of Islam (principally the United States, India and Israel) are on a crusade to push back the frontiers of Islam and deprive the Muslim world of its principal means of defense -- Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.

How can the holy Muslim book motivate youngsters to kill non-believers by killing themselves?

European Koranic "experts" say that two lengthy suras in the Koran deal with God's promise "to cast terror into the hearts of those who are bent on denying the truth; strike, then, their necks (Koran 8:12)." God also instructs his Muslim followers to "strike terror into his enemies and your enemies (Koran 8:60)."

The motto of the Pakistani army is "faith, piety and jihad in the path of Allah." A military manual on jihad titled "The Koranic Concept of War" is required reading at officers' training schools.

Sample: "The war (the prophet) planned and carried out was total to the infinite degree. It was waged on all fronts, internal and external, political and diplomatic, spiritual and psychological, economic and military …Thus, the Koranic military strategy enjoins us to prepare ourselves for war to the utmost in order to strike terror into the heart of the enemy, known or hidden …Terror struck into the hearts of the enemy is not only a means; it is the end in itself."

Mercifully, the United States is no longer seen as the enemy by most Pakistanis. Taliban, an organization originally patented by Pakistan's intelligence service, is now Public Enemy No. 1.

Madrassas are jealously guarded by Pakistan's countless politico-religious extremists.

Government edicts on curriculum reform are ignored with impunity. Free meals and an "education" are the principal attraction for the overwhelming majority of Muslim Pakistan's 175 million people who subsist on $2 or $3 a day.

The government cannot afford a modern public school system for the poor as the military absorbs most of the budget. And Pakistan cannot return to the ranks of strong peace-loving nations until madrassas are replaced by normal high schools. These are still a decade or two away.

The miserable conditions under which a majority of Pakistan's poor eke out subsistence living (electricity is frequently unavailable for 12 hours a day, shutting down fans and naked bulbs in 100-degree heat) are likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

The game changer is the Pakistani army, whose volunteers came principally from the ranks of the poor. But the officers, if not the rank-and-file, now understand that religious extremists are no longer their allies.

With 3,500 killed by terrorists in a year and more than 10,000 injured and many small businesses closed, coupled with the government's neglect of their plight for lack of funds, and U.S. aid spread thin over a multitude of unrelated projects, those who cherry-pick suicide targets to make matters worse are faced with an embarrassment of riches.

The government, such as it exists, is left with a grim menu of inadequate medical and police responses, followed by vigils and commemorations.

The governor of Punjab, long considered the most important of Pakistan's four provinces, says it is now a "bomb" waiting to explode.

In Baluchistan, youths on motorcycles attacked and disfigured teenage girls by throwing acid in their faces.

Following the army eviction of militants from the scenic Swat Valley, and its return to civilian control, Taliban extremists are now back -- while the army has moved on to fighting Talibanis infiltrating back into the South Waziristan, Bajaur and Orakzai tribal agencies whence they had also been evicted over recent months.

The military, long used to static positions on the Indian frontier, is exhausted. So is the equipment. Helicopters, in desperately short supply, require 15 hours of maintenance for every hour ferrying troops or rocketing Taliban strong points. And tribal leaders who fled South Waziristan last fall are refusing to return to their villages.

The United Nations issued an SOS for some 300,000 new refugees from the fighting who require food, water, sanitation, health care and shelter. Some 1.3 million already displaced by earlier fighting in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa province (formerly known as North-West Frontier province) are yet to go home and are stranded with little assistance, says the United Nations.

A former high-ranking Pakistani official, speaking privately, told us, "Now that the state is finally taking some domestic terrorists head on, it is high time the pseudo religious terrorists, previously protected, be brought to book for spreading hate, bitterness and terror throughout the country."

Most of the banned sectarian organizations like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Siphah-e-Sahaba Pakistan are now an integral part of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan. And they have taken on Shiite Muslims from the tribal areas to Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan, where they are known as Hazaras and whose first language is usually Persian Farsi rather than Pushto.

Evidently, TTP has revived from multiple blows from the Pakistani army since August when it lost its founder Baitullah Mehsud, killed in a U.S. drone attack. His successor, Hakimullah Mehsud, caught in the cross hairs of another drone flown by remote control from Nevada, was first reported killed. Severely injured, Hakimullah Mehsud survived; six others were killed.

TTP's new commanders have apparently revamped their fading organization. Both the Afghan and Pakistani branches of Taliban are still well entrenched on both sides of the long -- 1,400 miles -- border, and are reaching out to all manner of extremist Muslim groups that share the same twin goals -- Caliphate and Shariah.

In Afghanistan, rhythmic chants of "Death to America" and "Long Live Islam" echoed from demonstrators outside Jalalabad protesting U.S. troops who had killed a Taliban "facilitator." He was also the brother-in-law of a prominent parliamentarian. Instructed to lower his weapon, he raised it and was promptly cut down.

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