Two senior terrorists of Deobandi Taliban among 4 killed in Afghanistan

Amid reports of reunification of different Deobandi terrorist factions, the Pakistan’s Deobandi sectarian Taliban on Thursday suffered a huge loss after four of their members, including two senior Deobandi militant commanders, were killed by their fellow Wahhabis-allied Deobandi militants in eastern Afghanistan. The Taliban later blamed the Deobandi militants who killed their commanders of having ties with the Pakistani security agencies.

Deobandi terrorist outfit Taliban’s sources said two senior members of the Pakistani Taliban, Qari Shakil Ahmad Haqqani and Dr Tariq Ali alias Abu Obaidah al-Islamabadi, were among the four Deobandi terrorists killed by their fellow fighters in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province.

According to sources, all the four died on the spot. There was no clear information why the Deobandi militants had killed their senior commanders. Ehsanullah Ehsan, the spokesman for the Deobandi TTP’s Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, however, said four Deobandi militants were involved in the assassination of senior Taliban leaders, adding that they were given the task by Pakistani security agencies to kill the commanders.

“They had joined us almost four months ago and were living with us. But they were in fact planted by the Pakistani security agencies and given the task to kill our senior people,” Ehsanullah Ehsan alleged.

Talking to this correspondent on the phone from somewhere in Afghanistan, he said they had killed two out of the four captured Deobandi militants involved in the killing of Taliban leaders.“Two were killed by our men soon after they shot dead our senior commanders. The two others were caught alive and were gunned down after they confessed to their relations with the Pakistani security agencies,” the Taliban spokesman said.

Deobandi terrorist known as Qari Shakil belonged to the Mohmand Agency and had served as the head of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)’s political Shura before it split into factions. He had also led a delegation of the Deobandi TTP that held one round of face-to-face talks with a team of government negotiators last year.

When the Deobandi TTP splintered last year, Qari Shakil chose to work with his close friend Omar Khalid Khurasani, a dreaded militant commander who quit the mainstream TTP and formed the breakaway group, TTP-Jamaat-ul-Ahrar.

Qari Shakil was considered as the right-hand man of Omar Khalid Khurasani, who too was reportedly wounded earlier in a joint operation by Afghan and foreign forces in the Nangarhar province.

Dr Tariq Ali had served as a captain in the Pakistan Army. In one of his videos, he had claimed to have served in the Frontier Corps Balochistan, 80 Brigade Siachen, and various places in the Punjab. He cited posting in Waziristan as the reason for leaving the army.

He said he had spent two tenures in North Waziristan and South Waziristan tribal regions and refused order of the second-in-command official when he was asked to go for the third time. After deserting the army, he had gone to London. He had stated that his “PA” number was 103907 and he passed out in the 18th course of the Army Medical College.

Dr Tariq Ali said that he had worked in the army for nearly seven years and about nine years ago he left the army and migrated to London where he did general surgical training in London and Cambridge. He said he had left Britain with the intention to go to Iraq and join the ISIL (DAISH), but was arrested on the way and sent to jail in Croatia. Then he said he was deported to Pakistan and faced some difficulties in the beginning. Later, he joined the TTP-JA.