Top TTP commander escapes suspected drone strike

Maulvi Faqir Mohammad was the target of drone strike in Afghanistan's Kunar province, say TTP sources

A top leader of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) escaped unhurt from a suspected drone strike on a safe house in eastern Afghanistan, the group said on Friday.

The strike on Thursday evening came a week after a ceasefire between the TTP and the government collapsed.

The TTP – a separate movement but sharing common roots with Afghanistan's new leaders – plunged Pakistan into a period of horrific violence after forming in 2007.

Read more: Afghan Taliban, TTP are not one entity: IEA spokesperson

Two TTP sources currently in Afghanistan told AFP that Maulvi Faqir Mohammad was the target of what they described as a drone strike on a compound in Chawgam village, in the eastern province of Kunar bordering Pakistan.

"Maulvi Faqir Mohammad was not present at the time... two fighters of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan were wounded," one source said.

The compound was being used as a base by TTP terrorists from Pakistan crossing the porous border with Afghanistan, he said.

Maulvi Faqir was arrested by the previous US-backed Kabul government and spent years in Afghanistan's notorious Bagram prison, but was released after the Taliban's lightning takeover of the country in August.

Also read: TTP declares end to ceasefire

It was not clear who was responsible for Thursday's attack, but both Pakistan and the United States have previously used unmanned aerial vehicles to conduct assassinations in the region.

Bilal Karimi, a spokesman for the Afghan Taliban, told AFP from Kabul that the strike was an explosive fired from the ground.

The TTP emerged 14 years ago and have been blamed for around 70,000 killings by successive Pakistani governments.

Thursday marked the seventh anniversary of the TTP massacre of nearly 150 schoolchildren in Peshawar, an atrocity that remains seared on Pakistan's national consciousness.

It prompted a 2014 crackdown by the military which crushed the movement and forced its hardline fighters into hiding in Afghanistan.

Pakistan is now trying to quell a TTP comeback after the victory of the Taliban in Afghanistan.