Miramshah attack: TTP ex-interim chief killed in ambush

Asmatullah Shaheen’s driver and two guards also died when gunmen opened fire on his vehicle.

MIRAMSHAH:

Former interim chief of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the group’s senior commander Asmatullah Shaheen Bhittani was killed along with his driver and two guards in an ambush in the North Waziristan tribal agency Monday morning.

An official of the political administration said that Asmatullah Shaheen, the head of the TTP’s FR Tank chapter, was killed by gunmen in the Darga Mandi area of Miramshah, the headquarters of North Waziristan Agency, around 10am.

He was travelling to Miramshah Bazaar from Ghulam Khan Tehsil in his car along with his driver and three guards when gunmen ambushed his vehicle, the official said.

Asmatullah, his driver Toufan Bhittani and two guards were killed on the spot, while a third guard was wounded, the official added. “The attackers, who had come in a vehicle from the Miramshah side, fled after the attack unseen and unchallenged.”

The area where the attack took place is four kilometres away from Miramshah Bazaar and near the Pak-Afghan border. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

Asmatullah, who was believed to be in his mid-40s, belonged to the Bhittani tribe and hailed from the Jandollah area of FR Tank. He had a 10-million-rupee bounty on his head and was wanted by the government in multiple attacks on security forces.

He was named acting chief of the TTP after the death of Hakimullah Mehsud in a US drone strike in November 2013. According to the BBC, Asmatullah was considered a close confidante of Mehsud. He had claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on the Ashura procession in Karachi, which killed 43 people and wounded more than 100 in December 2009, AFP reported.

He was also responsible for storming a paramilitary Frontier Corps outpost in Tank in 2011, killing one soldier and kidnapping 15. Eleven of the detainees were later executed while the rest escaped.

There was no immediate reaction from the TTP, but security analyst Imtiaz Gul said the killing was likely the result of Asmatullah’s several enmities.“Militant groups have fought against each other in the past and the killing of Asmatullah Shaheen is apparently because of those internal differences,” he told AFP.

Observers do not believe his death will have a major impact on the future of stalled peace talks between the government and the TTP that began this month.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 25^th, 2014.