According to the Pakistan Taliban, a prominent leader escaped unharmed from a suspected drone strike on a safe house in eastern Afghanistan.
The strike came a week after a ceasefire between the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the government was broken, with militants accusing Islamabad of killing their fighters.
After establishing in 2007, the TTP — a different movement with common roots with Afghanistan’s new leaders — pushed Pakistan into a period of horrible conflict.
Maulvi Faqir Mohammad was the target of a drone strike on a compound in Chawgam village, in the eastern province of Kunar, near the Pakistani border, according to two TTP sources in Afghanistan.
“Maulvi Faqir Mohammad was not present at the time… two Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan members were wounded,” according to one source.
TTP fighters from Pakistan crossing the porous border with Afghanistan were using the compound as a base, he claimed. Mohammad was imprisoned for years in Afghanistan’s notorious Bagram prison by the previous US-backed Kabul government but was released after the Taliban’s swift takeover of the nation in August.
It was unclear who was behind Thursday’s strike, although both Pakistan and the US have used unmanned aerial vehicles to carry out assassinations in the region in the past.
The hit was an explosive fired from the ground, according to Bilal Karimi, a spokesman for the Afghan Taliban, who talked to AFP from Kabul. The TTP was founded 14 years ago and has been blamed by Pakistani administrations for about 70,000 deaths.
On Thursday, Pakistan commemorated the seventh anniversary of the TTP massacre of almost 150 schoolchildren in Peshawar, a crime that has left an indelible impact on the country’s collective memory.
The military responded with a crackdown in 2014, crushing the movement and forcing its hardcore Islamist fighters into hiding in Afghanistan. Pakistan is now attempting to prevent a TTP resurgence following the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan.
