A top commander of the Pakistani Taliban, Abdul Wali Mohmand also known as Omar Khalid Khorasani was killed in a bombing in Afghanistan on Sunday the 7th of August.
The killing of Abdul Wali a Taliban commander, who was behind some of the deadliest attacks in recent years has delivered a major blow to the Islamist militants.
The U.S. State Department had Mohmand on its wanted list and had offered a bounty of up to three million dollars for information on his whereabouts.
His vehicle was targeted by a roadside bomb in the Afghan province of Paktika, on the border with Pakistan.
The Pakistani Taliban on Monday confirmed the death and said the group would soon issue a longer statement on the killing.
At least two other commanders were also killed in the bombing on Sunday, a week after a U.S. drone strike in Kabul had killed Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Khorasani is thought to have been close to Al-Qaeda’s founding leader Osama Bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri, but it isn’t currently known if there was any link between the drone strike and the bombing.
Khorasani at one point broke away from Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an umbrella organization for several Islamist groups, and formed his group, Jamaat ul Ahrar.