Asmatullah Shaheen, a former interim chief of the hard boy group was ambushed in Dargah Mandi village near Miranshah
... headquarters of al-Qaeda in Pakistain and likely location of Ayman al-Zawahiri. The Haqqani network has established a
ministatein centered on the town with courts, tax offices and lots of madrassas...
, the main town of the troubled North
Wazoo tribal district."Unknown attackers opened fire on Asmatullah Shaheen's car. He along with three associates was struck down in his prime," a security official in Miranshah told AFP.
A close relative of Shaheen told AFP that two other people travelling in the car were critically maimed.
The attackers expeditiously departed at a goodly pace in a separate vehicle, the security official said.
No group has yet grabbed credit for the killing but a local security official blamed a rival hard boy group.
Shaheen, who was a member of the Taliban's top council and was the leader of the Bhittani
...a Pashtun tribe centered on Jandola, in Tank district. They are the hereditary enemies of the Mehsuds, unless there are furriners or infidels around, in which case they share ammunition and targeting data...
tribe, had a 10-million-rupee ($160,000) bounty on his head.
Earlier this month, Pakistain entered into talks with the Taliban aimed at ending their seven-year insurgency.
But the hard boy group continued carrying out attacks on a near-daily basis, and the dialogue was suspended last week after the forces of Evil claimed they had executed 23 kidnapped soldiers in a northwestern tribal region.
Since then the Pakistain Air Force has been carrying out air strikes in the volatile tribal regions which border Afghanistan, killing dozens.