A top Pakistani Taliban commander close to Al-Qaeda is believed to have been killed in an army airstrike, officials said Saturday. Maulvi Faqir Mohammed was believed to be among a number of insurgents killed Friday at a sprawling compound in the northwest Mohmand tribal region, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said. He said authorities had not identified the bodies of Mohammed or his fellow commander Qari Ziaur Rehman, but all the militants hiding at the site were killed after the helicopter gunships were dispatched on “real-time” intelligence. “If Faqir Mohammed and Qari Ziaur Rehman are alive, then I will be surprised,” he told a news channel after receiving a briefing from the paramilitary Frontier Corps in Peshawar. Mohammed was a deputy commander in the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan leading the network's operations in the Bajaur and Mohmand tribal regions. He also was close to Al-Qaeda No. 2 leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri. Two intelligence officials also said that Mohammed was believed dead and that about two dozen insurgents had died in Friday's airstrike.
