Top Pakistani Taliban Leader Slain in Afghanistan
Omar Khalid Khorasani allegedly masterminded attacks on security forces, tribal elders, and peace committee members in the border area
[Islamabad] Omar Khalid Khorasani, a top commander of the proscribed Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), aka the Pakistani Taliban, was reportedly killed along with three associates in a roadside bomb blast in eastern Afghanistan late Sunday night.
An Islamabad-based senior intelligence official, speaking to The Media Line on condition of anonymity, said that Khorasani’s car came under attack in Barmal District, Paktika Province.
The other people killed in the incident were identified as Mufti Hassan, Hafiz Daulat Khan, and Khorasani’s son-in-law, the official said.
“Mufti Hassan and Hafiz Daulat were among those TTP splinter commanders who joined ISIS in 2014,” the official added.
The funeral for the slain TTP commander was held in Kunar, Afghanistan, across the border from his hometown in the former tribal agency of the Mohmand District in Pakistan on Tuesday night, according to pro-TTP media outlet The Khorasan Diary.
Khorasani’s real name was Abdul Wali Mohmand.
Quoting TTP spokesman Muhammad Khorasani, The Khorasan Diary also reported that the TTP said it will resume attacks against the military.
On Sunday morning, TTP intelligence chief Abdul Rashid, code-named Uqabi Bajauri, was also killed in a landmine blast in Afghanistan’s Kunar Province. Uqabi was originally from the Bajaur District, another former tribal district in Pakistan.
Khorasani was allegedly the mastermind of the deadliest attacks against security forces, tribal elders, and peace committee members in the area.
He was also involved in extorting politicians in tribal areas and among those leaders of the TTP who waged war against government institutions including targeting security forces.
Khorasani once led a parallel government in the Mohmand Tribal Area bordering Afghanistan that harshly suppressed women’s rights. He also took credit for inducting female suicide bombers into the Pakistani Taliban.
The TTP and its associated terror groups have carried out suicide attacks in Pakistan over the past 14 years and killed more than 70,000 Pakistanis.
Khorasani was among those TTP members who formed a splinter terrorist group, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), in 2014 and swore allegiance to ISIS. However, JuA rejoined the Taliban in 2015.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar was held responsible for carrying out a suicide blast in Lahore city on Easter Sunday 2016 that killed 75 Christians.
This holiday season, give to:
Truth and understanding
The Media Line's intrepid correspondents are in Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Pakistan providing first-person reporting.
They all said they cover it.
We see it.
We report with just one agenda: the truth.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar was declared a banned outfit due to its ruthless attacks on US and allied forces in the Kunar and Nangarhar provinces of Afghanistan.
In March 2018, the US State Department added Khorasani to its Rewards for Justice wanted list, offering a reward of up to $3 million for information on him.
Khorasani was part of the TTP negotiating team that participated in the recent peace talks with Pakistani government officials, and one of the Islamic clerics who recently visited Kabul.
The Afghan Taliban is mediating peace talks between Pakistan and the TTP. His death is described as a blow to the negotiations.
In an effort to find a political solution to the issue and at the request of the Afghan Taliban, the first-ever such talks were held in Kabul in November 2021.
The negotiations culminated in a month-long cease-fire that ended when differences soon surfaced.
Last month, at the initiative of Islamabad, a delegation of leading Pakistani Islamic clerics visited Kabul. The main purpose of the visit was to advance the stalled peace talks between Islamabad and the TTP.
Meanwhile, four Pakistan Army soldiers were killed in a suicide attack on a military convoy in North Waziristan, the Armed Forces Media Wing said on Tuesday.
“The security agencies are investigating to find out about the suicide bomber and his facilitators,” the Media Wing added.
According to the local sources, a suicide bomber driving an auto-rickshaw rammed it into a security forces vehicle in Mir Ali, North Waziristan District, which resulted in four fatalities and eight injured.
Is there intelligence-sharing between Pakistan and Afghanistan?
The Media Line asked various officials from both countries about this, but due to the sensitivity of the matter, most of them refused to speak.
Lutfullah Rahimi, a Herat-based former Afghan intelligence operative, told The Media Line that “the involvement of Pakistani intelligence in Afghan affairs is not a covert thing and this practice was amplified a lot after the Soviet invasion [in December 1979] when Pakistani intelligence agencies, as well as the American CIA, started to interfere in Afghanistan, which ultimately resulted in the shameful withdrawal of the Soviet Union [in 1989].”
“The world knows very well that Pakistan’s top intelligence agency along with the CIA played a significant role in the withdrawal and splintering of the Soviet Union,” Rahimi continued. “Pakistani intelligence agencies subsequently provided financial, logistical, and training support to the so-called Mujahedeen during the Soviet era.
“Similarly, even during the US-led invasion in Afghanistan, the role of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies was not hidden from anyone and there is no need to comment on it,” he added.
“In 2020, during the Kabul visit of [then-Pakistani] Prime Minister Imran Khan, Islamabad and Kabul agreed to intensify their joint efforts to eliminate fugitive Pakistani terrorist groups that are camped inside Afghanistan, through close intelligence sharing,” Rahimi said.
“It was also decided that work would be started immediately on the basis of joint intelligence to identify, search for and cooperate against the enemies of peace and those who thwarted the peace process,” he said.
Rahimi denied that relations between the intelligence agencies of Islamabad and Kabul are shaky.
“During Ashraf Ghani’s time [as president of Afghanistan in 2014-2021], the relations between the Afghan intelligence and Pakistani secret agencies remained bad, which was mainly due to big involvement of Indian secret service in Afghan intelligence affairs,” he said.
“Pakistan and Afghanistan had always accused each other’s intelligence agencies of any terror activity across the border, but since the Taliban came to power [in the summer of 2021], there are very close ties between the two countries, particularly at the intelligence sharing level,” Rahimi said.
“A clear example of this is the death of various most wanted Pakistani terrorists on Afghan soil during the last year, including Omar Khorasani and some Balochi separatists,” he said.
“Some Pakistani analysts are also convinced that there had been intelligence sharing among Kabul, Islamabad, and Washington involved in the death of [al-Qaida chief] Ayman al-Zawahiri at the hands of a US drone attack [last month],” Rahimi said.
Shabbir Hussain Malik, an Islamabad-based regional security expert, told The Media Line, “Terrorism is a common problem for both Pakistan and Afghanistan and this common enemy should be eradicated through mutual efforts.
“By making intelligence sharing a guiding principle, both the countries can realize the dream of permanent restoration of law and order on their soil,” he added.
“Intelligence sharing on Khorasani’s whereabouts by the Afghan interim regime could be a part of a deal with Pakistan and the US intelligence agencies. The killing of Khorasani rules out, to a large extent, the possibility of any outside sneak-peek into TTP’s most wanted leader,” Malik said.
He added that the death of Khorasani and his accomplices will not leave any impact on bilateral intelligence relations, although the Pakistani Taliban have demanded that the Afghan authorities investigate the incident, saying this appears to be a formal demand.
“Khorasani always claimed that he had personally sheltered Ayman al-Zawahiri during the US-led invasion in Afghanistan. Because of this, it is being circulated in the Pakistani intel corridor that like Zawahiri, Khorasani has been targeted after intelligence sharing among Islamabad, Kabul, and Washington,” Malik said.
