Maulvi Faqir Mohammed, the acting leader of Pakistan's main Taliban grouping, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), told the BBC via cell phone Aug. 22 that the organization's 42-member leadership council has appointed Hakeemullah Mehsud to be the TTP 's new leader. Hakeemullah is the TPP's most prominent regional operations commander, and led the largest TPP regional command, located in Khyber, Orakzai, and Kurram agencies of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The council also reportedly appointed Azam Tariq as its spokesman. The announcement comes after reports of TTP infighting in the wake of the death of its founder and former leader, Baitullah Mehsud, in which Hakeemullah and/or his rival Wali-ur-Rehman reputedly had been killed. Maulvi Faqir continues to insist that Baitullah did not die in a suspected U.S. drone strike Aug. 5, but instead is ill, and that the move to appoint Hakeemullah as his successor is in keeping with Baitullah Mehsud's instructions. The appointment suggests the TTP may be getting a handle on its internal disarray, though the overall coherence of the group remains in doubt. Given that the meeting of the council was held in Orakzai agency, Hakeemullah's home turf, Hakeemullah apparently managed to marshal the support of a majority of TPP stakeholders. Aside from the challenge of settling on a successor, the TTP is also working to eliminate the leaks that resulted in Mehsud's death and the arrests of its top operative Qari Saifullah and spokesman Maulvi Umar. When announcing that he had become interim leader, Maulvi Faqir had said that Swat-based Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan had become the TTP's spokesman. Maulvi Faqir explained today that the lack of cell phone service in the area prevented Khan from assuming his responsibilities, which is why the leadership appointed South Waziristan-based Tariq to assume the role of spokesman. This suggests disruptions in the TTP's communication network. More significantly, however, will be Hakeemullah's success or lack thereof as the leader of the TTP, a coalition of more than two dozen factions. Baitullah possessed both political and operational leadership qualities that allowed him to catapult the Pakistani Taliban rebellion from a low-intensity militancy confined to the country's northwestern tribal belt to a raging insurgency that enveloped the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and was able to strike deep into the Pakistani core. Whether or not his successor, Hakeemullah — believed to be in his late 20s — will be able to lead the group effectively remains to be seen. The choice of Hakemullah over a more politically savvy individual such as Wali-ur-Rehman suggests that the priority of the group at this stage lies in demonstrating that it is alive and kicking, which can only be done through a resumption of suicide attacks in Punjab province and through ambushes of security forces in the NWFP. The downside of this approach is that the TTP may eventually experience even greater factionalism as Pakistani intelligence continues to exploit rifts within the group. Maulvi Faqir's statement about TTP's rival leaders being pleased with Hakeemullah's appointment shows that the group is very conscious of its internal divisions and of the challenges from rival groups. Indeed, there are serious questions about the long-term viability of the TTP in the political sense. But in the short and medium term, the rise of Hakeemullah could very well lead to renewed attacks.