A senior commander of the banned militant group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), identified as Khalid Swati, has reportedly been killed in Afghanistan’s Kunar province, according to social media posts circulating on Sunday.
The posts say Swati was shot by unidentified armed men in Kunar, and a photograph purporting to show the slain commander has since circulated online. No group has claimed responsibility for the killing, and neither the Taliban-led Islamic Emirate nor the TTP had issued an official statement till the filing of this report.
If confirmed, the killing would be the latest in a long series of similar attacks on TTP figures inside Afghanistan, many of them in Kunar province specifically, which has repeatedly been the site of targeted shootings and bomb attacks against the group’s commanders in recent years.
Pattern of similar killings
Kunar and neighbouring provinces have seen a string of killings of TTP commanders under circumstances similar to those described in fresh report. In April 2024, TTP Malakand chapter commander Talha Swati was shot dead in Kunar’s Asadabad area after Friday prayers. Some reports attributed that killing to the rival Islamic State Khorasan Province, while others pointed to internal TTP rifts.
In December 2024, senior commander Maulvi Shahid Umar Bajauri was shot dead alongside two others during a lunch in Kunar’s Shegal district, in what was described at the time as the most significant killing of a TTP figure under Taliban rule to date.
Pakistan has repeatedly accused elements within the Afghan Taliban government of sheltering TTP fighters and leadership on Afghan soil, a claim the Taliban has denied. Islamabad has carried out cross-border strikes reportedly targeting TTP hideouts inside Afghanistan on several occasions.
Note: This report will be updated if the Afghan Taliban, Pakistani officials, or the TTP issue statements confirming or denying the claim.