Photo: The Khorasan Diary

Senior Pakistani Taliban commander killed in eastern Afghanistan

Senior commander of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) faction, Dost Mohammad aka Asad Afridi, was reportedly killed in an airstrike in the Lalpura district of eastern Nangarhar province.

Afridi belonged to TTP’s Jammat ul-Ahrar faction and was the former shadow governor of the militant group’s Dera Ismail Khan administrative division in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, according to the Express Tribune.

The death news of TTP’s faction commander emerged on Thursday while Islamabad had previously warned of airstrikes against terrorist hideouts inside Afghanistan if Kabul was unable to rein in TTP militants.

Afridi was believed to be behind several terror attacks inside Pakistan, including the July 13 deadly attack on an Army’s Zhob garrison in Balochistan that killed 12 Pakistani soldiers.

The attack led to internal conflict between Afridi and the mainstream TTP leadership, with the former dismissed from TTP, leading to the formation of Tehrik-e Jihad Pakistan (TJP).

Two days after the Zhob attack, Jammat ul-Ahrar’s Karachi leader, Mohammad Daudzai, was gunned down by unidentified persons in Afghanistan’s eastern Paktika province.

Since the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, terrorist attacks have surged across Pakistan, targeting Pakistani security forces and civilians. Pakistan has blamed the Taliban for the escalating terror-related insecurity in Pakistan, mainly for harboring the TTP.

However, the Taliban has denied Pakistan’s consistent allegations that Afghanistan soil is used for cross-border militant attacks, saying that Pakistan should find a solution to tackle terror threats on its own.

A recent UN Security Council Monitoring report highlighted that factions of the TTP militants who are being sheltered in Afghanistan are avoiding control by the Taliban in a bid to merge with Al-Qaeda to expand their influence.