Pak Taliban interim chief shot dead Minister invites rebels for cricket match
GUNNED DOWN Asmatullah Shaheen was on army’s list of most wanted and had $120 mn bounty on his head since 2009
MIRANSHAH: A top commander of the Pakistani Taliban was shot dead by unidentified gunmen on Monday in the militant stronghold of North Waziristan, security sources and family members in the tribal region told Reuters.
Asmatullah Shaheen was on the Pakistan army’s list of twenty most wanted Taliban commanders, and had had a $120,000 bounty placed on his head since 2009.
He was appointed as interim chief of the Pakistan Taliban following the killing of Hakimullah Mehsud, the previous leader, in a US drone strike on November 1.
Shaheen’s killers ambushed his car as it passed through Dargah Mandi, a village 5 km northwest of Miranshah, the regional capital of North Waziristan.
The Pakistani Taliban insurgency is fighting to topple Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s democratically elected government and impose Sharia law in the nucleararmed nation. Attacks have been on the rise since Sharif came to power in May, promising a negotiated end to violence. His stance unnerved global powers already worried that withdrawal of most US-led troops from Afghanistan in 2014 would leave a security vaccuum.
Peace talks between the Pakistani government and Taliban insurgents began on February 6 but broke down last week after insurgents said they executed 23 men from a government paramilitary force in revenge for the killing of their fighters by army forces.
Shaheen was considered one of the proponents of peace talks, according to sources close to the Taliban. The failure to reach a settlement has raised the spectre of a major military offensive in North Waziristan, a region bordering Afghanistan where al Qaedalinked militants are based. ISLAMABAD: Pakistan interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Monday invited the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) to a cricket match to solve disputes between the two sides.
Making comments in a lighter mode after a Rawalpindi cricket tournament, Nisar Ali said he knew for a fact that various members of the TTP play and watch cricket and that matters could be resolved by playing a match.
Nisar was replying to questions from reporters over the fate of the stalled peace talks between the Nawaz Sharif government and the TTP. Dodging the questions, Nisar instead commented if a cricket match took place between the government and the TTP, “no matter what, the outcome would be positive.”
In his comments on the issue, however, Nisar Ali Khan also told reporters that the army had been given powers for a limited operation OMAR KHORASANI, Taliban leader tweets in response to Pak minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan’s offer
in the troubled Waziristan area. “They have been allowed to go in and take limited and surgical action,” he said.
TTP-Mohmand chapter leader Omar Khorasani responded to the interior minister’s remarks in a tweet. “Chaudhry Nisar sahib cricket would be played after Islamic system is enforced as we cannot expect neutral umpires in the present system,” Khorasani tweeted in Urdu.