A senior commander of the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Omar Khalid Khorasani, and three other senior militant leaders were killed in a mysterious explosion in eastern Afghanistan’s Paktika province, a media report said on Monday.

A vehicle carrying top commanders of the militant group, including Khorasani, was attacked with a mysterious explosive device on Sunday, Afghan officials and local sources said, The Express Tribune newspaper reported.

According to the report, the vehicle struck a roadside mine

. All occupants of the vehicle, which was also carrying other TTP commanders such as Abdul Wali Mohmand, Mufti Hassan, and Hafiz Dawlat Khan, were killed in the blast, The Express Tribune quoted a senior Afghan official as saying. According to a local source, TTP leaders were “en route for a consultation” when their vehicle struck a roadside mine on Sunday.

Khorasani, who belonged to the Mohmand tribal district, was considered a key member of the TTP, the militant group that wants to enforce Sharia law across Pakistan. Khorasani, who has put a 10 million rupee bounty on his head.

Hafiz Dawlat, from the Orakzai tribal district, was a senior member of the group and a close trustee of the Khorasani, while Mufti Hassan was from the Malakand division and swore allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the late leader of the terrorist organization Islamic State.

TTP, intelligence chief as well Abdul Rashid aka Uqabi Bajauri was killed in a landmine blast in Afghanistan’s Kunar province on Sunday morning, local Afghan sources said. Peace negotiations were negotiated between the TTP and the Pakistani government.

The Pakistani Taliban are a separate group but allied to the Afghan Taliban

, who seized power in Afghanistan a year ago when US and NATO troops were in the final stages of their withdrawal. The TTP has led an insurgency in Pakistan for the past 14 years, fighting for stricter enforcement of Islamic law in the country, the release of its members from government detention, and a reduction in the Pakistani military presence in the country’s former tribal areas.

His own militant group, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, later joined the Pakistani Taliban. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar was classified as a terrorist organization by the United States in 2016. Rewards for Justice, the US State Department’s counterterrorism rewards program, offered up to $3 million for information on Khurasani.

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar is accused of carrying out a series of attacks on Pakistani forces and religious minorities. The group also claimed responsibility for the March 2016 killing of two Pakistani US consulate employees in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

That same year, he claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in a park in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore that killed more than 70 people. the last 15 years. Khurasani was among TTP negotiators holding talks with Pakistani officials since May.

Security officials and members of TTP identified three other militants killed in the attack as Hassan Ali, Mufti Hassan, and Hafiz Daulat.  It was not immediately known where they were buried.

The news comes after the outlaw group and Pakistan reached an impasse during their talks when the team refused to heed their demands to reverse the merger of the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) with Khyber Province.-Pakhtunkhwa from Pakistan, the report said live TV

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