[DAWN] The Jamat-ul-Ahrar faction of banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) announced a change in leadership after Ameer Maulana Qasim Khurasani and Deputy Ameer Omer Khalid Khurasani...intel chief of the Jamaatul Ahrar TTP splinter group, or whatever it's calling itself these days...
tendered their resignations with political shura.
In a statement issued to media on Wednesday, TTP Jamat-ul-Ahrar asserted that the outfit's political shura accepted the resignations and has appointed commander Asad Afridi as Jamat-ul-Ahrar's acting Ameer.
Jamat-ul-Ahrar's spokesperson Ehsanullah Ehsan
...formerly the front man for the Pak Taliban, now the lips and tongue of the Jamaatul Ahrar splinter group in Mohmand Agency...
confirmed the development, saying it was a routine matter. "According to rules and regulations, changes may be made after six months," he said.
The faction, which parted ways with TTP in August last year, had grabbed credit for the Wagah blast in Lahore on November 2, 2014, killing at least 60 people and injuring more than 100.
Jamat-ul-Ahrar had also grabbed credit for an attack on a Rawalpindi Imambargah
...since Pakistain is very religiously correct, Shia Moslems can't call their houses of worship 'mosques,' which are reserved for Sunnis. It's not clear if imambargahs are used for explosives storage like mosques are...
in January this year, killing at least nine people and injuring 16.
The TTP splinter group mostly comprises Taliban gunnies operating in and around
Mohmand Agency... Named for the Mohmand clan of the Sarban Pahstuns, a truculent, quarrelsome lot. In Pakistain, the Mohmands infest their eponymous Agency, metastasizing as far as the plains of Peshawar, Charsadda, and Mardan. Mohmands are also scattered throughout Pakistan in urban areas including Karachi, Lahore, and Quetta. In Afghanistan they are mainly found in Nangarhar and Kunar...
.
At the time of the group's formation, its front man, Ehsanullah Ehsan, had confirmed that in addition to Maulana Qasim Khurasani as its chief, the group's political shura includes Omer Khalid Khurasani from Mohmand Agency, Qari Shakil Haqqani from Charsadda, Maulana Yasin from Swat, Qari Ismail from Khyber Agency, Maulana Adbullah from Bajaur Agency, aka Turban Central
...Smallest of the agencies in FATA. The Agency administration is located in Khar. Bajaur is inhabited almost exclusively by Tarkani Pashtuns, which are divided into multiple bickering subtribes. Its 52 km border border with Afghanistan's Kunar Province makes it of strategic importance to Pakistain's strategic depth..., Mufti Misbah from Beautiful Downtown Peshawar
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.
, Maulana Haider and Mansoor Nazim Shura from Orakzai Agency
... crawling with holy men, home to Darra Adam Khel, the world's largest illegal arms bazaar. 14 distinct tribes of beturbanned primitives inhabit Orakzai agency's 1500 or so square kilometers...
.