Noor Wali Mahsud appointed TTP head

PESHAWAR: After their week-long silence, the Pakistani Taliban on Saturday finally confirmed that their leader Mulla Fazlullah Khurasani was killed in a US drone strike in Afghanistan’s Kunar province two days before Eidul Fitr.

Also, Muhammad Khurasani, a spokesman for the proscribed Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a conglomeration of different militant organisations, said their leadership council nominated another militant commander, Mufti Noor Wali Mahsud, as new head of the Pakistani Taliban.

As per reports of the Pakistani security agencies and information gathered from multiple sources, Mulla Fazlullah was killed on June 13, on the night between Wednesday and Thursday, but Pakistani Taliban remained tight-lipped. During this period, they neither denied nor confirmed his death. The Afghan Ministry of Defence on June 15 officially confirmed Maulana Fazlullah’s killing in US drone strike in Kunar.

As it happened before, Pakistani Taliban first chose their new leader reportedly with consensus and then announced the execution of Fazlullah officially. “Like his predecessors, Baitullah Mehsud and Hakimullah Mehsud, Mullah Fazlullah was killed in a US drone attack at 11pm on 28th of Ramazan,” said the TTP spokesman in a statement sent to media from an undisclosed location.

According to sources, Mulla Fazlullah had attended an Iftar dinner with his close fellows in one of the militant camps reportedly operated by the Pakistani militants in Marawara district of Kunar province. It was stated to be 11pm when Fazlullah and his four close men left the camp and sat in a car when came under drone strike.

Though Taliban didn’t mention the others killed with him, Pakistani security authorities identified them as Mulla Omar alias Fateh Ustad, Mulla Imran, Mulla Sajid and Mulla Abu Bakar. Taliban sources said all of them were buried in the same night and in the same area.

Among them, Omar Fateh was a very fearful militant commander and a right-hand man of Mulla Fazlullah. He was chief of the Malakand-based Taliban and led a group of militants that invaded Buner district and seized the entire district without firing a single shot in April 2009. Some of the Pakistani Taliban learnt about his death on Friday but were strictly barred from sharing it with the media. However, their conversation was intercepted by the security agencies deployed on the Pakistan-Afghan border area, in which militants were reportedly heard lamenting the loss of their leader in the missile strike.

Born in Swat in 1974, Mulla Fazlullah had risen from a little known liftman to the most wanted militant in Pakistan. His original name was Fazal Hayat. He had studied at the Jehanzeb College in Swat up to intermediate. According to the residents in Swat, Fazlullah had also worked at a makeshift chairlift that used to help cross people on River Swat. Fazlullah had also studied in a madrassa run by Maulana Sufi Mohammad, leader of Tanzim Nifaze Shariat-e-Mohammadi, in Maidan, Dir district. He could not complete his religious education and returned to Swat, but had married the daughter of Maulana Sufi Mohammad.

When the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and toppled the Taliban regime, Fazlullah went to Afghanistan when his father-in-law Maulana Sufi Mohammad took thousands of untrained villagers to Afghanistan from the Malakand region to fight alongside the Afghan Taliban against the invading forces. He later returned Pakistan and was caught by the Pakistani security forces and put in jail for 17 months in Dera Ismail Khan. After his release from the prison, Fazlullah began his militant activities initially by setting up an FM radio station in Swat, which he used for his fiery speeches against the US and its allies in Afghanistan.

He used to blame the then Pakistani military ruler General Pervez Musharraf for helping the US in the war against Afghan Taliban. Later, he used his widely listened FM radio for spreading his harsh views that got him popularity and created terror among the people of Swat valley.

However, the Lal Masjid operation in 2007 in Islamabad provided him with an opportunity and he announced 'jihad' against the state. It was apparently due to this FM radio that got him prominence and he was called Mulla Radio.

After the Pakistan Army launched offensive against the militants in Swat in 2009 that displaced about three million people, Fazlullah and his fighters, to the surprise of many, managed to flee Swat and appeared in Afghanistan. He settled in the neighbouring mountainous provinces of Kunar and Nuristan and from there he started staging devastating terrorist attacks in Pakistan. He was elected leader of the Taliban in 2013 and replaced Hakimullah Mehsud when he was killed in US drone strike in 2013 in Miranshah, North Waziristan.

Mulla Fazlullah had sent his fighters to kill the Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai in 2012 for her public support to women’s education in her native Swat valley. He had, however, stated they targeted Malala Yousafzai for her and her father’s Ziauddin Yousafzai remarks against them and not for her role of promoting females’ education. Taliban under his commander had claimed several other deadly attacks in Pakistan, but the deadly attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar on December 16, 2014 that left 134 schoolchildren dead and dozens other injured, had changed public perception about Taliban.

In 2015, the US declared Fazlullah on global terrorism list, as apparently his group was behind the Army Public School massacre and 2012 assassination attempt on Malala Yousafzai, who was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. And in March 2018, the US placed $5 million head money on Fazlullah.

The TTP’s new leader Mufti Noor Wali is a trained militant commander. He was deputy to another militant commander Khalid Mehsud aka Sajna, until his death in a US drone strike in Afghanistan’s Paktika province this year. He then became head of the militants belonging to the Mehsud tribe in South Waziristan. And it was Mulla Fazlullah who appointed him his deputy this year. Taliban sources said Mufti Noor Wali is known by his nickname Ghar Starga and is regarded as a very ruthless militant with his experience working in Pakistani urban areas including Karachi.

According to sources, he recently wrote a book praising founder of Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, who too was killed in US drone strike in 2009 in Zangara village of Ladha subdivision of South Waziristan. Noor Wali aka Abu Mansoor Asim hails from Machikhel Zafarkhel sub-clan of Mehsud tribe. He was born on June 26, 1978 in Gorgoray area in Tiarza tehsil of South Waziristan.

He received his early education at a “Madrisa Siddiqia Ospas”. He later went to Faisalabad and studied at Jamia Imdadia, Jamia Haleemia, Darrapizo and Jamia Farooq-e-Azam there. Noor Wali also studied at ‘Jamia Nusratul Uloom in Gujranwala, Punjab and then went to ‘Jamai Ahsanul Uloom’ in Karachi in 1999 and also studied at ‘Jamia Yaseenul Quran’ there.

Mufti Noor Wali returned to his native Gorgoray village in SWA after completing his religious education and taught religious books at a local religious seminary ‘Madrisa Imdadul Uloom’ for two years. Later, he went to Afghanistan and joined the Afghan Taliban and fought alongside them against the Northern Alliance. He fought for two months against the Northern Alliance and then returned to Pakistan. Noor Wali later completed his remaining religious education on the insistence of his late father Haji Gul Shah Khan.

He again went to Afghanistan after the US invasion of Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks, in the convoy of Maulana Mirajuddin to fight against the invading forces. He was saddened by the fall of Taliban rule in Afghanistan and joined the TTP after participating in the first meeting of Mehsud militants in 2003 in which Baitullah Mehsud was made the chief. He led the militants during the military operation in Manzai in March 2004 and in Mehsud dominated areas in September the same year.He relinquished his charge after the Sararogah agreement between government and Taliban but remained commander of Jalrai area on the till May 2017. He was also commander for Karachi from 2013-15.