From Foot Soldier to Terrorist Mastermind: Pakistani Taliban Leader Omar Khalid Khorasani

From Foot Soldier to Terrorist Mastermind: Pakistani Taliban Leader Omar Khalid Khorasani

Abdul Wali, commonly known by his jihadist nom de guerre Omar Khalid Khorasani, is one of the most senior leaders in the Pakistani Taliban. He exemplifies the transformation that Pakistani Taliban’s leadership has undergone in recent years. Khorasani has risen from jihadist foot soldier to a major terrorist mastermind involved in transnational campaigns. As a member of the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (Movement of the Pakistani Taliban – TTP) leadership council and founder of one of its most potent factions, Khorasani is a key figure in the al-Qaeda-allied jihadist movement in Pakistan. His influence will almost undoubtedly play a role in determining whether the Taliban embraces a peace settlement with Islamabad or continues its campaign of violence against the government. 

Background 

Like most Pakistani Taliban leaders, Khorasani fought for the Afghan Taliban, has cooperated with Pakistani jihadists fighting in Indian-administered Kashmir and is closely allied with al-Qaeda. According to the TTP’s Urdu-language monthly magazine Ahya-e Khilafat (the Revival of the Caliphate), Khorasani was born in the village of Gandharoo in the Mohmand Agency, one of the seven tribal districts in northwestern Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). He went to a local public school, but later switched to a madrassa in the southern port city of Karachi. He apparently failed to graduate from the seminary and thus does not use the customary title of Mullah. [1] 

Khorasani began his jihadist career as a foot soldier with the Afghan Taliban in 2002. He fought in the Shomali plains north of Kabul after the U.S. military campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaeda began in October 2001. After returning to Pakistan, he joined Harakat-ul-Mujahideen, a Pakistan-based Sunni Deobandi organization fighting Indian forces in the Himalayan Kashmir region. By 2006, he had moved to the South Waziristan tribal district and took part in fighting against NATO troops across the border in Afghanistan’s southeastern province of Paktika. That year, a prominent Pakistani Taliban leader, Baitullah Mahsud, appointed Khorasani a Taliban leader in his home region of Mohmand. [2] 

Role in Expanding the Taliban 

In 2007, the Pakistani military’s bloody showdown with a radical pro-Taliban cleric at Islamabad’s Red Mosque led Khorasani to lead the militant seizure of an historic shrine in Mohmand (Dawn [Karachi], August 1, 2007). Khorasani was formally appointed the amir of the TTP in Mohmand in late 2007. By that time, the group had emerged as an umbrella organization of various Pakistani Taliban factions. To consolidate his power over the strategic region, sandwiched between the eastern Afghan provinces of Nangarhar and Kunar, and Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Khorasani took on other jihadist factions in Mohmand. After battles in the summer of 2008, his faction succeeded in vanquishing Salafi fighters linked to Pakistan’s Lashkar-e Taiba militants (BBC Urdu, July 20, 2008).

Over the next few years, Khorasani expanded his reach to nearby Peshawar, capital of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, and the districts of Charsadda, Mardan and Swabi. His faction claimed responsibility for targeting senior secular politicians in the region in a terrorist campaign marked by suicide bombings targeting mosques, churches and security officers. The Mohmand Taliban also incorporated most major criminal cartels in the region in an organization headed by Khorasani’s deputy, Qari Shakeel. This group established a constant stream of funding, first by taxing marble quarries in Mohmand, and later by expanding extortion rackets and kidnapping to Peshawar, Mardan, Charsadda and Swabi. Collectively called the Peshawar Valley, the region is considered the most affluent Pashtun region in Pakistan. Locals claim Khorasani’s faction also expanded its extortion and kidnapping rackets to Pakistan’s southern seaport city of Karachi, where many Mohmand tribesmen own construction and transport businesses. [3]  

Grand Ambitions 

Since 2009, Khorasani has established himself as one of the most prominent Taliban leaders in Pakistan. His faction controls the TTP propaganda machine and has established near-total control over Mohmand after a campaign to eliminate the region’s traditional tribal leadership in multiple suicide attacks in 2010. Khorasani said the leaders were killed because they had opposed al-Qaeda in the region. [4] Military operations, peace accords and government sponsored peace committees have so far failed to dislodge the Mohmand Taliban. But Pakistani authorities insist that Khorasani has been in hiding in the remote eastern regions of Afghanistan since 2009 following major military operations that targeted his faction in Mohmand and the neighboring Malakand region. 

In July 2011, Khorasani announced his intentions to attack American targets to avenge the killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden by U.S. forces: “God willing, the world will see how we avenge Osama bin Laden’s martyrdom… We have networks in several countries outside Pakistan” (Reuters, June 6, 2011; Express Tribune, June 6, 2011). In 2012, Khorasani was appointed Taliban amir of the Khyber Agency. Hundreds of his fighters participated in battles against pro-government Ansarul Islam militias and the Pakistani military. [5] The November 2013 killing of Hakimullah Mahsud in a suspected U.S. drone strike propelled Khorasani to a more senior position within the TTP. He and his deputy Shakeel are now members of the central Taliban Shura. They are also at the forefront of the TTP’s violence targeting Pakistani minority Shi’a Muslims. 

Conclusion 

Khorasani is a strong candidate to succeed TTP leader Mullah Fazlullah. He may also seek to torpedo Pakistani government talks with the Taliban. In a recent statement, he accused Pakistan’s main intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), of continuing to murder detained Taliban members. “It seems that the government is not serious in negotiations and is using [negotiations] to play a political game,” said a statement posted on Twitter. “This government can never control the ISI and the army. If this situation continues, peace will remain an elusive dream.” [6] 

Khorasani soon acted on his threats. On February 16, his group claimed responsibility for the death of 23 Pakistani paramilitary troops. His faction had captured the Frontier Corps soldiers from a remote border post in Mohmand in 2010 (Express Tribune [Karachi], February 17). In response, Islamabad suspended peace talks with the TTP and began airstrikes against insurgents in the tribal areas and parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province (Dawn [Karachi], February 18). 

Abubakar Siddique is a journalist with RFE/RL and the author of The Pashtun Question: The Unresolved Key to the Future of Pakistan and Afghanistan (London: Hurst and Company, 2014). 

Notes 

1. Ahya-e Khilafat, September 2013, https://ia601008.us.archive.org/21/items/EKhilafa/AhyaEKhilafat_Sep2013.pdf.

2. Ibid.

3. Author’s interviews with locals in Peshawar, February 2014.

4. Ahya-e Khilafat, September 2013, https://ia601008.us.archive.org/21/items/EKhilafa/AhyaEKhilafat_Sep2013.pdf.

5. Ibid.

6. TTP Statement, posted on February 10, 2014, https://twitter.com/omarkhorasani1.