PESHAWAR: Two key leaders of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have been killed in a clash with a faction of Punjabi Taliban across the Afghan border.

According to sources, the clash took place in Lalpura area of Nangarhar province in Afghanistan on Thursday morning, in which eight militants, including head of the TTP central Shura Qari Shakeel Ahmad Haqqani and Dr Tariq Ali, were killed.

Ehsanullah Ehsan, spokesman for the Jamaatul Ahrar, had confirmed death of four militants, including Qari Shakeel and Dr Tariq, on Thursday and blamed an intelligence agency. Qari Shakeel was carrying Rs10 million head money.

Dr Tariq was a former officer of the Army Medical Corps. Qari Shakeel was head of the TTP team which held peace talks with a committee appointed by the government last year.

The sources said that a younger brother of Mohmand Agency-based TTP leader Shamsul Haq alias Abu Bakar was also among the dead.

An official source said that the clash left dead four TTP men and a Punjabi Taliban militant. An injured associate of the Punjabi Taliban jumped into a river but TTP men captured him. The bodies of the man killed earlier and the captured one were hanged from a tree and set on fire.

Later, during the funeral of the TTP men, two men were captured and immediately executed.

Published in Dawn, March 14th, 2015

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