TTP Splinter Group Commander Assassinated in Afghanistan

Dost Muhammad, also known as Asad Afridi, a prominent commander of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP) Jamaatul Ahrar faction, was killed in an airstrike in Lalpura, Afghanistan. Asad Afridi was previously the TTP’s shadow governor for the Dera Ismail Khan District in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.

Afridi was responsible for claiming several attacks, including an assault on a Pakistani military garrison in Balochistan’s Zhob district last month. Despite the TTP’s denial of involvement, Afridi asserted that the Tehreek-e-Jihad Pakistan (TJP), which the TTP claimed was responsible for the attack, was actually a front for the TTP itself.

He had also criticized the TTP’s central leadership for removing him from his position as shadow governor of the DI Khan District.

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Afridi’s removal as shadow governor came amidst differences between the TTP and its Jamaatul Ahrar faction following the Zhob attack. Last year, the Karachi ’emir’ of Jamaatul Ahrar, Muhammad Duadzai, was also killed by unidentified gunmen in Afghanistan.

Asad Afridi, hailing from the Mohmand District in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, was wanted for his alleged involvement in various attacks, extortion, and target killings across Pakistan.

The Zhob Garrison attack resulted in the martyrdom of 12 security personnel, with nine soldiers killed during the thwarted terrorist assault on the Zhob Garrison and three more soldiers losing their lives in a subsequent attack in the Sui district in July 2023, according to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR).