A drone strike reportedly targeted a senior leader of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on Thursday in Kunar, an Afghan province bordering Pakistan, just over a week after the ceasefire understanding between the Pakistan Taliban and the Pakistan government came to end. Maulvi Faqir Mohammed, a senior TTP leader and former deputy leader of the banned group, was the target but escaped, multiple media reports confirmed. A missile was fired upon a guesthouse he was staying in but it failed to explode, Reuters reported, citing sources within the Islamist group. 

“He was about 3 meters away from the hujra room (guesthouse) when the drone fired a missile and hit the same room. Luckily the missile didn’t explode and he and other people around him remained safe,” Reuters quoted the TTP source as saying. 

It isn’t yet clear if the drone strike inside Pakistan was conducted by Pakistan or the US. However, the possibility that the strike was conducted by Pakistan is high as the TTP has been waging a war against the Pakistani state and often use bordering province in Afghanistan as their bases. 

Interestingly, the TTP and the Pakistan government are holding peace talks, assisted by the Afghan Taliban, which returned to power in Kabul in August. Talks, mediated by the chief of the infamous Haqqani Network Sirajjuddin Haqqani, had even resulted in a one-month ceasefire that ended on 9 December. The group then resumed its attacks on Pakistani forces.

Interestingly, Faqir Mohammed, who was unsuccessfully targeted on the Thursday strike, had spent eight years in Bagram prison and was only released after the Afghan Taliban overran Kabul. TTP has been waging war against the Pakistan government for over a decade now, calling the latter an unIslamic authority, and demanding imposition of Sharia rule in the country. 

Large-scale military operations by the Pakistan security forces in the erstwhile FATA region, the stronghold of the group, had greatly disrupted and diminished the TTP's capacity to operate with impunity in the region. The TTP, which shares close fraternal ties with the Afghan Taliban, then took refuge in Afghanistan. 

In recent years, the group made its presence felt again in the region, with a slew of mergers with various jihadi groups and continued attacks, including targeted killings, inside Pakistan. The group’s rank and file, emboldened by the Afghan Taliban victory in Afghanistan, has intensified its attacks against the security forces in Pakistan. 

Furthermore, the recent release of almost a hundred of its leaders and cadres by the Pakistan government— as the precondition of the ceasefire agreement—could further increase trouble for the government in the coming months. 
 
(SAM)