Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) senior leader Khalid Batli alias Mohammad Khurasani was killed in the eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan.
Khalid Balti had been making efforts for uniting various TTP factions and planning terrorist attacks with TTP chief Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud, the official said, adding that he had recently hinted at carrying out terrorist attacks inside Pakistan, according to Dawn.
The incident assumes significance as Afghan Taliban backs TTP, the proscribed group in Pakistan which has been behind several terror attacks in the country including the Peshawar Army School attack which killed over a hundred children in 2014.
However, a spokesman for the Taliban government denied the killing of the senior TTP member and said that no such incident had taken place.
"I do not confirm these reports. They are not true. No such incident has taken place on this (Afghan) side," Afghan government spokesperson Bilal Karimi told Dawn.com when asked for a comment on Balti's killing.
Khalid Balti hails from Pakistan's Gilgit-Baltistan region and had been an operational commander of the TTP for the past several years.
Further, in 2007, Balti joined the banned Tehreek Nifaz Shariat-i-Muhammadi in Swat and established close ties with Mullah Fazlullah, a former head of the TTP. He had cordial and close relations with TTP members of all tiers, according to Dawn.
( With inputs from ANI )
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