TTP militant leader Khorasani killed in a bomb blast in Afghanistan

Asia-Pacific, News August 9, 2022 , by IRIA No Comments

A top militant commander and founding leader of the banned organization Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP), Omar Khalid Khorasani, has been killed in a targeted attack along with three others identified as Khorasani’s driver and two of his close aides.

On August 9, TTP confirmed the killing of its senior commander Abdul Wali, also known as Omar Khalid Khorasani, during a blast in Afghanistan’s Paktika province. Afghan and Pakistani media reports suggested that three others killed alongside Wali were believed to be Mufti Hasan, Hafiz Dawlat Khan, and Wali’s son-in-law.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the killing. Wali who was on the US State Department’s most-wanted list and had a reward of up to $3 million for information on his whereabouts.

The TTP leader’s death in Afghanistan comes a week after a U.S. drone raid in Kabul killed al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The Pakistani Taliban are a separate group but allied with the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in Afghanistan a year ago as the U.S. and NATO troops were in the final stages of their pullout.

Khorasani also headed Jamaat ul-Ahrar (JuA), a militant faction affiliated with Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization and banned in Pakistan. The TTP has waged an insurgency in Pakistan over the past 14 years. The JuA and TTP terror networks have claimed responsibility for multiple attacks throughout Pakistan, killing hundreds of civilians and security personnel.

Pakistani officials and media have reported that Khorasani was behind some of the deadliest attacks in recent years.

*^{On August 9, TTP confirmed the killing of its senior commander Abdul Wali, also known as Omar Khalid Khorasani, during a blast in Afghanistan’s Paktika province. (Image Credit: Twitter)}*

Khorasani parted ways with the TTP following the leadership struggle after Pakistan launched military operation Zarb-e-Azb in the tribal districts in June 2014. However, the JuA splinter group headed by Khorasani joined the TTP in August 2020.

The continuous military operations by Pakistan had shattered the TTP’s command and control structure in the tribal region and forced the group to take refuge across the border in Afghanistan’s east. Pakistan says it has now completed fencing more than 93% of the border with Afghanistan to prevent cross-border militant attacks.

The killing of Omar Khalid Khorasani is a major blow to the TTP which had intensified terror attacks inside Pakistan from Afghan territory.

Soon after the killing of the TTP leader, Pakistan’s North Waziristan district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province saw a suicide bombing that killed four Pakistani soldiers. Police and local officials said that the bomber rammed a three-wheeler into the military convoy late on August 8 in the Mir Ali area of the remote district. The Pakistani military said that they have initiated investigations into the suicide bombing.