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2018-06-24 Afghanistan
TTP appoints Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud as chief after Fazlullah's killing
[DAWN] The banned Tehrik-e-Taliban
...Arabic for students...
Pakistain (TTP) announced it had appointed a new leader on Saturday after the Lion of Islam group confirmed for the first time its former chief Mullah Fazlullah
...son-in-law of holy man Sufi Mohammad. Known as Mullah FM, Fazlullah had the habit of grabbing his FM mike when the mood struck him and bellowing forth sermons. Sufi suckered the Pak govt into imposing Shariah on the Swat Valley and then stepped aside whilst Fazlullah and his Talibs imposed a reign of terror on the populace like they hadn't seen before, at least not for a thousand years or so. For some reason the Pak intel services were never able to locate his transmitter, much less bomb it. After ruling the place like a conquered province for a year or so, Fazlullah's Talibs began gobbling up more territory as they pushed toward Islamabad, at which point as a matter of self-preservation the Mighty Pak Army threw them out and chased them into Afghanistan...
was killed in a US dronezap last week.

Continued from Page 1



US forces targeted Fazlullah in a counterterrorism strike on June 14 in Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province
... which is right down the road from Chitral. Kunar is Haqqani country.....
, close to the border with Pakistain.

US officials had not confirmed whether the strike was successful but Afghanistan's Caped President Ashraf Ghani
...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. ..
later confirmed the killing to Caretaker Prime Minister Nasir-ul-Mulk and Chief of Army Staff Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa in phone calls.

In a statement sent to AFP on Saturday, TTP front man Mohammad Khurasani confirmed Fazlullah was killed in the US dronezap.

"It is a matter of pride that all leaders of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain have been martyred by infidels," Khurasani said, referring to Fazlullah's two predecessors who were also killed in dronezaps.

The group's shura council elected Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud to replace him, he added.

The Pakistain Army has called Fazlullah's apparent death a "positive development".

In contrast to Fazlullah's infamous brutality, the new TTP leader has a scholastic and literary background.

Mehsud, 40, studied at a number of religious seminaries in Pakistain to specialise in different fields of religious teaching. He served as a deputy to Baitullah Mehsud, who has been blamed for the 2007 liquidation of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto
... 11th Prime Minister of Pakistain in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996. She was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistain People's Party, who was murdered at the instigation of General Ayub Khan. She was murdered in her turn by person or persons unknown while campaigning in late 2007. Suspects include, to note just a few, Baitullah Mehsud, General Pervez Musharraf, the ISI, al-Qaeda in Pakistain, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who shows remarkably little curiosity about who done her in...
The new leader Mehsud earlier this year authored a book in which he described the planning of Bhutto's liquidation, identifying the snuffies involved, including one who is still on the lam and believed to be hiding in South Wazoo.

Mehsud also fought against the US-backed Northern Alliance in Afghanistan and took part in TTP attacks against Pak security forces.

According to a Dawn report, he hails from Gorgoray area of Sararogha tehsil and belongs to Mechikhel, a sub-clan of the Mehsud tribe. He also remained a qazi (judge) of Sharia court established by Baitullah Mehsud.

"With the appointment of Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud the leadership of TTP has returned to Mehsud tribe in its home base South Waziristan as Fazlullah was from Swat," Rahimullah Yusufzai, an acclaimed journalist and expert on the Taliban, told AFP.

Mehsud's leadership could see the breakaway factions which emerged in the TTP after Fazlullah fled to Afghanistan in 2009 reunite, Yusufzai said.
Posted by Fred 2018-06-24 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11154 views ]  Top
 File under: TTP 

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