Mullah Fazlullah in Pakistan's tribal areas: spokesman

Published December 3, 2013
Mullah Fazlullah. — File photo
Mullah Fazlullah. — File photo

MIRAMSHAH: Mullah Fazlullah, the new head of banned organisation Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), has returned to Pakistan's tribal areas, a spokesman for the militants said Tuesday, after several years based in Afghanistan.

Hardline cleric Maulana Fazlullah was elected as leader of the TTP last month after his predecessor Hakimullah Mehsud was killed by a US drone strike.

Fazlullah has been based mainly in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan since 2009, when a military operation ended his followers' brutal two-year rule of northwest Swat valley.

TTP spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said Fazlullah was now “commanding the Taliban movement at an unknown location in the tribal areas”.

The TTP and other militants have strongholds in the seven semi-autonomous tribal areas along the country's rugged, porous border with Afghanistan.

Shahid's comments came after some local TV channels reported that Fazlullah had reached Waziristan.

“It is not true that Maulana Fazlullah is in Waziristan, he is in the tribal areas but at an unknown location,” Shahid told AFP.

Then-TTP chief Hakimullah Mehsud was killed by a US drone attack in North Waziristan on November 1, while South Waziristan was largely cleared of militant hideouts by a military offensive in 2009.

Washington has pushed for a similar operation in North Waziristan, currently seen as the major hub of Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants plotting attacks on the West and in Afghanistan.

Fazlullah, who has a $500,000 government bounty on his head, has mounted some brutal and humiliating attacks on Pakistan's military, including the beheading of 17 soldiers after an attack in June 2012.

Opinion

Editorial

Depopulating Gaza
Updated 07 Feb, 2025

Depopulating Gaza

The least feasible "solution" is the Trumpian plan for Gaza’s ethnic cleansing and occupation, which is a non-starter.
‘Pause’ in US aid
07 Feb, 2025

‘Pause’ in US aid

THE impact of the Trump administration’s decision to ‘pause’ all US foreign aid programmes, especially those...
Mobilising opposition
07 Feb, 2025

Mobilising opposition

POLITICS makes strange bedfellows. There has not, for quite some time, been a guest list as intriguing as the one...
No time left
Updated 06 Feb, 2025

No time left

Climate change concerns continue to remain a footnote as politics dominates national discourse, surfacing only when disaster strikes.
Karim Aga Khan
06 Feb, 2025

Karim Aga Khan

PRINCE Karim Aga Khan was a man who straddled various worlds and cultures. Beyond his role as spiritual leader of ...
Cotton production
06 Feb, 2025

Cotton production

PAKISTAN’S cotton crop is on the ropes. The crop output has been falling since FY15, when the country harvested a...