Security forces gun down militant commander in Bajaur IBO

ISPR says Ghafoor alias Jaleel was a close acquaintance of TTP’s Maulvi Faqir Muhammad

Security forces have killed a terrorist commander, identified as Ghafoor alias Jaleel, in an intelligence-based operation (IBO) in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s Bajaur tribal district, the military said on Saturday.

“Terrorist Ghafoor alias Jaleel was close acquaintance of Maulvi Faqir Muhammad – a top leader of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) – and was involved in many terrorist activities,” the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement.

It added that one security official also sustained injuries during the exchange of fire with the terrorist.

The operation was conducted two days after Maulvi Faqir escaped unhurt from a suspected drone strike on a safe house in eastern Afghanistan.

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

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.

Also read: TTP declares end to ceasefire

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.

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.