The story comes from Times of India.
New Taliban chief returns to Pakistan's tribal areas: Spokesman
MIRANSHAH, Pakistan: The new head of the Pakistani Taliban has returned to the country's tribal areas, a spokesman for the militants said on Tuesday, after several years based in Afghanistan.
Hardline cleric Maulana Fazlullah was elected as leader of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) last month after his predecessor was killed by a US drone.
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 Pakistan's 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 Pakistan's rugged, porous border with Afghanistan.
Shahid's comments came after some Pakistani 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 unknown location," Shahid said.
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-Qaida 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.
1 comment:
The rock hunt begins. How many rocks will need to be turned over before this widow maker gets a hellfire up his ass, and while they are at it, another Taliban killer that happens to be in teh way should officially join teh Hell fire martyrs Club. (no virgin guarantee) void where prohibited by law. Time to spool up the Reapers and predators and have at em. He wont have any need to look over his shoulder, the hellfire will find him regardless. Maybe a small griffin will just take off his legs and leave him half a mongrel instead of a whole mongrel
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