Pakistan

‘Mullah Fazlullah in tribal areas’

Fazlullah was elected TTP leader one week after his predecessor Hakimullah Mehsud was killed in a US drone attack.

Agencies December 04, 2013

Mullah Fazlullah. PHOTO: FILE

DERA ISMAIL KHAN/ MIRANSHAH: Mullah Fazlullah, the new head of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), has returned to Pakistan’s tribal areas, the group’s spokesman said on Tuesday, after spending several years in Afghanistan.

Fazlullah was elected TTP leader one week after his predecessor, Hakimullah Mehsud, was killed in a US drone attack last month.

TTP spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said Fazlullah was now “commanding the Taliban movement at an unknown location in the tribal areas”.

Two intelligence sources confirmed that Fazlullah had crossed the mountains into Pakistan a day earlier. “We have information that... Fazlullah has entered the Pakistani tribal area along with 15 or 20 guards,” said one source. TTP sources confirmed he had reached the tribal areas.

Earlier, Asmatullah Shaheen Bhittani, head of the supreme council (shura), had been appointed as TTP temporary functional head in Fazlullah’s absence.

Shahid’s comments came after some TV channels reported that Fazlullah had reached Waziristan.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 4^th, 2013.