The head of the Pakistani Taleban claimed responsibility today for the commando assault on the police academy in Lahore, and threatened further atrocities, not just in Pakistan but in Afghanistan and even in America.

Baitullah Mehsud, 35, said that yesterday's attack was in retaliation for bombing runs by unmanned US drone aircraft in the frontier areas of Pakistan, targeting militant leaders.

Mr Mehsud took the unusual step of picking up the phone in person to call the BBC and Western news agencies, rather than issuing a statement through a spokesman.

Analysts say that his increasing self-confidence comes as he emerges as the leader of an ever-broader alliance of many of the main militant groups in Pakistan. The grouping has proved itself able and willing to strike not just in the troubled tribal areas but to attack high-profile targets in Pakistan's economic heartland, a development that they say is both new and highly dangerous.

Last week the US blamed Mr Mehsud for co-ordinating attacks on US forces across the border in Afghanistan and placed a $5 million price on his head, making him the most wanted Pakistani militant. At the same time, the US military also sent its first drone attack specifically targeted at him.

Today Mr Mehsud said that retribution had come in the form of yesterday's assault in Lahore, when attackers with guns, grenades and suicide vests stormed the police training centre in Pakistan's cultural capital, and held out during an eight hour gun battle with the army. Seven police cadets, a civilian and four attackers died.

"We wholeheartedly take responsibility for this attack and will carry out more such attacks in future,” he said. “It’s revenge for the drone attacks in Pakistan.”

Mr Mehsud said that he had set up a council of mujahedeen (holy warriors) bringing together different militant groups “to step up attacks on US and Nato forces in Afghanistan".

He shrugged off the US bounty on his head, saying his militants would continue their assaults in Pakistan and Afghanistan and could even mount attacks in the United States.

“You can’t imagine how we could avenge this threat inside Washington, inside the White House,” he said. “The maximum they can do is martyr me. We will exact our revenge on them from inside America."

Mehsud is the head of the Tehreek-e-Taeiban Pakistan (TTP), or Movement of Taleban Pakistan, a loose umbrella group of factions that has carried out attacks across the country, although so far mainly in the northwest.

He is influential in both North and South Waziristan as well as the Bajaur tribal district to the north, where Pakistani security forces carried out a major offensive last month.

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