Pakistan security forces have announced that they eliminated the “most wanted commander” of the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and two other militants in separate operations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Sunday.
TTP’s Hazrat Ali alias Gagga was targeted in a military offensive in Khyber’s Tirah Valley, aimed at uprooting the remnants of the Lashkar-e-Islam group migrating from Afghanistan. Lashkar-e-Islam, once led by Mangal Bagh, faced decimation in Afghanistan over three years ago, The Express Tribune reported.
Pakistani military media wing Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) confirmed the operations, reporting the recovery of weapons and explosives. In North Waziristan, security forces engaged militants, resulting in the death of two terrorists.
In the past two years, militant attacks spiked after a lull when many Islamist groups were driven into neighbouring Afghanistan with a military operation in 2014. The groups – particularly the TTP – reorganised in Afghanistan after the Taliban returned to power there in 2021, and have been reportedly using advanced weaponry left behind by NATO-led forces.
Militants have carried out a string of high-profile attacks and returned to strongholds inside Pakistan. The TTP attacks have caused unprecedented friction between Islamabad and the Taliban, who were previously believed to have close ties, as has Islamabad’s expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Afghans, many of whom have lived in Pakistan for decades.
In another flashpoint, the Taliban last month said Pakistan carried out two air strikes on its territory, killing five women and three children. Both sides traded blame over who was responsible for a recent spate of Islamist militant attacks in Pakistan. Meanwhile, Pakistan and Iran also shared tit-for-tat air strikes on purported militant bases on each other’s soil in January, and while the two seem to have fixed ties since, the incident has opened up a new security worry for Pakistan on its western border.
(With agency inputs)
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