Tribesmen in Miranshah, the headquarters of North Waziristan, said some bearded people standing outside the main Jamia Masjid in the city handed over leaflets to each person entering the mosque for the Zuhr prayer.
Handwritten in Pashto, the leaflet quoted Mulla Omar as saying that all the Muslims and particularly the “Mujahideen” are informed about the serious differences and ongoing clashes between two “Mehsud Mujahideen groups”.
Mentioning a prayer, Mulla Omar is again quoted as asking the people to recite it 100 times a day so that the differences and fighting between the warring militant groups of Mehsud tribe were resolved.It is for the first time that such a leaflet has been issued in Pakistan on the behalf of Afghan Taliban and specifically by their supreme leader, Mulla Omar.
The leaflet didn’t mention the name of the person who issued it and simply stated it was from ‘the Mujahideen’. Also, the leaflets were issued in North Waziristan, instead of South Waziristan where the two militant factions have been fighting each other.
Efforts were made but the spokesman for the Afghan Taliban Zabihullah Mujahid could not be reached. However, senior members of the Afghan Taliban doubted the authenticity of the leaflet.
“Well, at least we don’t know about any such statement issued on behalf of Mulla Mohammad Omar Mujahid. Anyone can issue a statement and attribute it to someone as it is no longer a problem doing this,” a senior member of the Afghan Taliban movement argued.
He said there had been many significant developments in Pakistan and differences had cropped up among the Pakistani Taliban in the past as well, but the Afghan Taliban and its supreme leader Mulla Omar had never issued such a statement.“The Afghan Taliban had played their role on several occasions and resolved the issues between the Pakistani militant factions but they never issued a statement,” the Taliban leader said.
Pleading anonymity, he argued that if the Afghan Taliban had issued the statement, they would have mentioned either ‘political Shura’ or the ‘Rehbari Shura’ (leadership council) in the leaflet.
Two factions of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), one headed by commander Khan Said alias Sajna, and another by commander Shehryar Mehsud have been fighting against each other in different areas of South Waziristan for the past one week.
There have been conflicting claims by members of the two rival Mehsud Taliban factions regarding the losses they had inflicted on each other during the clashes.Meanwhile, a commander of one of the militant factions led by Shehryar Mehsud, who is the successor of the late TTP head Hakimullah Mehsud, alleged that the rival commander Khan Said Sajna wanted to capture and take full control of South Wazirstan. Haji Daud Khan, claiming to speak for his faction, said their fighters were resisting the Khan Said Sajna’s group.
Earlier, Azam Tariq, member of the TTP central Shura belonging to the Khan Said Sajna faction, claimed that the differences between the two groups had been resolved. He insisted that ‘petty issues’ created confusion but the media played it up.
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