Maulvi Mawlawi ( ar, مولوي; also spelled Maulvi, Molvi, Moulavi and Mawlvi) is an Islamic religious title given to Muslim religious scholars, or ulama, preceding their names, similar to the titles Mawlānā, Mullah, or Sheikh. Mawlawi generally ...

Faqir Mohammed (

Pashto Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani (). Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official langua ...

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' Islamist militant and, until March 2012, a deputy leader of the Pakistani

Taliban The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state (polity), state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalist, m ...

umbrella group

Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan The Pakistani Taliban (), formally called the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan (Urdu/ ps, , lit=Student Movement of Pakistan, TTP), is an umbrella organization of various Islamist armed militant groups operating along the Afghan–Pakistani bo ...

. He was reported as killed on 5 March 2010 during a helicopter gunship attack on militants by the Pakistani military although he denied the reports as false.Pakistani Taliban leader disputes claims of deaths
CNN, 8 March 2010 In July 2011, he resurfaced on the air broadcasting radio shows out of Afghanistan. He was captured in Afghanistan on 17 February 2013, and released by the Afghan Taliban in 2021.

Early life and education

Mohammed was born in 1970 in Sewai, a village in

Bajaur District Bajaur District ( ps, باجوړ ولسوالۍ, ur, ) is a district in Malakand Division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan. Until 2018, it was an agency of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, then during restructuring that merged ...

Mamund Subdivision Mamund Tehsil ( ps, ماموند‬) is a subdivision located in Bajaur District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Mamund is the largest tehsil of district Bajaur. History Bajaur was declared as a subdivision of the former Malakand Agency in 1960, ...

, into a

Pashtun Pashtuns (, , ; ps, پښتانه, ), also known as Pakhtuns or Pathans, are an Iranian ethnic group who are native to the geographic region of Pashtunistan in the present-day countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They were historically r ...

family of the

Mamund The Mamund (or Mamond) ( ur, , ps, ) is a Pashtun clan which is a part of the larger Tarkani tribe. The clan is located principally in the Watelai valley (also known as Mamund Valley), Bajaur, but also owns villages on both sides of the Du ...

clan. Belonging to a religious family, he studied in a local

madrasa Madrasa (, also , ; Arabic: مدرسة , pl. , ) is the Arabic word for any type of educational institution, secular or religious (of any religion), whether for elementary instruction or higher learning. The word is variously transliterated '' ...

under Maulana Abdus Salam, a

Deobandi Deobandi is a revivalist movement within Sunni Islam, adhering to the Hanafi school of law, formed in the late 19th century around the Darul Uloom Madrassa in Deoband, India, from which the name derives, by Muhammad Qasim Nanautav ...

cleric under whom he achieved the

Dars-i Nizami Dars-i Nizami is a study curriculum or system used in many Islamic institutions (madrassas) and Dar Ul Ulooms, which originated in the Indian subcontinent in the 18th century and can now also be found in parts of South Africa, Canada, the Unite ...

graduation in the 1990s, then studied the

Quran The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , ...

in the Darul-Uloom

Panjpir Panjpir (Urduپنج پیر) is a town and Union council of Swabi District in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan that is surrounded by Shahmansoor, Kaddi, Thand Kohi, Bam Khel, Dara and Ismailabad.Panj peer means five Sufi Sanits. Distric ...

in the

Swabi District Swabi District ( ps, سوابۍ ولسوالۍ, ur, ) is a district in the Mardan Division of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan. It lies between the Indus and Kabul Rivers. Before becoming a district in 1988, it was a tehsil wit ...

, known to promote a local form of

Wahhabism Wahhabism ( ar, ٱلْوَهَّابِيَةُ, translit=al-Wahhābiyyah) is a Sunni Islamic revivalist and fundamentalist movement associated with the reformist doctrines of the 18th-century Arabian Islamic scholar, theologian, preacher, and ...

. In terms of political activities he was initially a local leader of the

Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan Jamaat-e-Islami (JI; Urdu: , "Islamic Congress"), or Jamaat as it is simply known, is an Islamist political party which is based in Pakistan and it is the Pakistani successor to Jamaat-e-Islami, which was founded in colonial India in 1941. It ...

before joining

Sufi Muhammad Sufi Muhammad bin Alhazrat Hassan (1933 – 11 July 2019) was a Pakistani cleric and Sunni Salafi Islamist militant, the founder of Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), a militant group (declared a terrorist outfit and banned in 2002) v ...

Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM, ur, تحریک نفاذ شریعت محمدی, en, Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law) is a Salafi Islamic extremist militant group in Pakistan whose objective is to enforce Sharia law in th ...

(TNSM) in 1993 or 1994. While in

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is borde ...

he also fought the Soviets in the 1980s and for the

in the 1990s. He has one wife in a tribal society where

polygamy Crimes Polygamy (from Late Greek (') "state of marriage to many spouses") is the practice of marrying multiple spouses. When a man is married to more than one wife at the same time, sociologists call this polygyny. When a woman is marr ...

is not uncommon. Mohammed was a staunch activist of TNSM, to the extent that he has been considered Sufi Mohammad's confidant and right hand man. He and his two sons were captured in

after the fall of the

in late 2001, and were held in

Dera Ismail Khan Dera Ismail Khan (; bal, , Urdu and skr, , ps, ډېره اسماعيل خان), abbreviated as D.I. Khan, is a city and capital of Dera Ismail Khan District, located in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. It is the 37th largest city of Pakista ...

jail in southern Pakistan. However, he successfully fled back to Pakistan, where his knowledge of the territory has been useful to Al-Qaeda operatives. He has been sanctioned as a

Specially Designated Global Terrorist A Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) is a person or entity that has been designated as such by the United States Department of State or the US Department of the Treasury. An SDGT designation is made under authority of US Executive Order 1 ...

under the

Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List The Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List, also known as the SDN List, is a United States government sanctions/embargo measure targeting U.S.-designated terrorists, officials and beneficiaries of certain authoritarian regimes, a ...

by the

United States Department of the Treasury The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States, where it serves as an executive department. The department oversees the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and ...

Office of Foreign Assets Control The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is a financial intelligence and enforcement agency of the U.S. Treasury Department. It administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions in support of U.S. national security and foreign policy o ...

; where he is listed as a member of the

Haqqani network The Haqqani network is an Afghan Islamist group, built around the family of the same name, that has used asymmetric warfare in Afghanistan to fight against Soviet forces in the 1980s, and US-led NATO forces and the Islamic Republic of Afghanist ...

with a birth year of 1968, a place of birth in either

North Waziristan Agency North Waziristan District ( ps, شمالي وزیرستان ولسوالۍ, ur, ) is a district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan. It is the northern part of Waziristan, a mountainous region of northwest Pakistan, bordering Afghanist ...

, Pakistan or

Federally Administered Tribal Areas , conventional_long_name = Federally Administered Tribal Areas , nation = Pakistan , subdivision = Autonomous territory , image_flag = Flag of FATA.svg , image_coat = File:Coat of arms ...

, Pakistan or

Khowst Province Khost (Pashto/Dari: ) is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the southeastern part of the country. Khost consists of thirteen districts and the city of Khost serves as the capital of the province. To the east, Khost Province is bord ...

, Afghanistan, and residential addresses in

Bannu Bannu ( ps, بنو, translit=banū ; ur, , translit=bannū̃, ) is a city located on the Kurram River in southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. It is the capital of Bannu Division. Bannu's residents are primarily members of the Banuchi tr ...

, Pakistan, or

Lahore Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second List of cities in Pakistan by population, most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th List of largest cities, most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is th ...

Relationship with al-Qaeda

His house was raided by Pakistani security agencies hunting a " high-value" al-Qaeda target in 2005. Public sympathy raised him into a position of leadership in the Bajaur Agency. His house was raided again on 22 January 2006, and three of his relatives were arrested. He is a wanted man due to suspected contacts with Taliban and

Al-Qaeda Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military targets in various countr ...

militants. Faqir has publicly stated that he has close ties to

Ayman al-Zawahiri Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri (June 19, 1951 – July 31, 2022) was an Egyptian-born terrorist and physician who served as the second emir of al-Qaeda from June 16, 2011, until his death. Al-Zawahiri graduated from Cairo University with a ...

For his part, Faqir Mohammed strongly denies any presence of al-Qaeda or Taliban leadership in the area and says, "According to Pashtun tradition we will definitely exact revenge on America. Ayman al-Zawahiri never came here but if he wanted to come, we will welcome him, and it will be a great pleasure for us to be his host" (''Daily Jang'', 23 January 2006). President
Pervez Musharraf General Pervez Musharraf ( ur, , Parvez Muśharraf; born 11 August 1943) is a former Pakistani politician and four-star general of the Pakistan Army who became the tenth president of Pakistan after the successful military takeover of t ...
, however, is insistent that "al-Qaeda fighters were probably killed in a suspected CIA air strike that killed 18 civilians in Bajaur Agency earlier this month...now that we have started investigating the reality on the ground, yes we have found that there are foreigners there, that is for sure." (''The Nation'', 25 January 2006).

He commented on the

Chenagai airstrike The Chenagai airstrike took place on October 30, 2006, around 5:00 am local time. Missiles were fired at a madrassa in Chenagai village in Bajaur region of Pakistan. An eyewitness has stated that the madrassa was filled with local students who ha ...

which occurred in October 2006.

Commander Faqir

Though not a tribal chief or elder, he has a security team and 15-20 followers. Faqir and his entourage travel in the Bajaur region with impunity. However, his house was burnt down by tribal elders as is custom. He was warned in January 2006 that failure to surrender to authorities would result in his house being burnt down again. He is third in command of the Pakistani Taliban umbrella group

(TTP), formed in December 2007 under the leadership of

Baitullah Mehsud Baitullah Mehsud ( Pashto/ ur, ; – 5 August 2009) was one of founder and a leading member of TTP in Waziristan, Pakistan, and the leader of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). He formed the TTP from an alliance of about five militant gr ...

and prefers the title Commander Faqir.Abbas, Hassan.
A Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan
". ''

CTC Sentinel The Combating Terrorism Center is an academic institution at the United States Military Academy (USMA) in West Point, New York that provides education, research and policy analysis in the specialty areas of terrorism, counterterrorism, homeland ...

'' 1 (2): 1–4. January 2008,

2009 Ceasefire

On 23 February 2009 Faqir Mohammed declared in a 30-minute radio broadcast that his followers would begin a unilateral ceasefire. The speech came only a few hours after the Pakistani military announced a halt to operations in the nearby

Swat valley Swat District (, ps, سوات ولسوالۍ, ) is a district in the Malakand Division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. With a population of 2,309,570 per the 2017 national census, Swat is the 15th-largest district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa pro ...

, where it had been battling the Swati division of the TTP under the leadership of

Maulana Fazlullah Fazal Hayat (1974 – 14 June 2018), more commonly known by his pseudonym Mullah Fazlullah (Pashto/ ur, ), was an Islamist militant who was the leader of the Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi, and was the leader of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Paki ...

TTP leadership changes

After Baituallah Mehsud's reported death in August 2009, Maulana Faqir Mohammed announced to the BBC that he would assume temporary leadership of the TTP and that

Muslim Khan Muslim Khan is a Pakistani militant and former spokesman for the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan chapter based in Swat. Born in Kabal Tehsil, Swat, in 1954 Khan started out as a student activist of a left-wing secular party in the 1960s, but became a ...

would serve as primary spokesperson. He also maintained that Baitullah had not been killed but rather was in ill health. Faqir further elaborated that decisions over leadership of the umbrella group would only be made in consultation and consensus with other TTP leaders. "The congregation of Taliban leaders has 32 members and no important decision can be taken without their consultation," he told the BBC. He reported to the AFP that both

Hakimullah Mehsud Hakimullah Mehsud (Pashto/ ur, حکیم اللہ محسود; − 1 November 2013), born Jamshed Mehsud () and also known as Zulfiqar Mehsud (), was a Pakistani militant who was the second emir of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. He was deputy to comm ...

and

Wali-ur-Rehman Wali-ur-Rehman (Wali Ur-Rehman Mehsud) (1970 – 29 May 2013) was a senior Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commander based in South Waziristan. Wali-ur-Rehman was formerly a spokesman for Baitullah Mehsud, the late leader of the TTP. Backgr ...

had approved his appointment as temporary leader of the militant group. Neither militant had publicly confirmed Faqir's statement, and analysts cited by

Dawn News Dawn News is one of Pakistan's 24-hour Urdu news channel. Based in Karachi, the station is a subsidiary of Pakistan Herald Publications Limited (PHPL), Pakistan's largest English-language media group. The test transmission of the station occ ...

believed the assumption of leadership actually indicated a power struggle. Two days later Faqir Mohammed retracted his claims of temporary leadership and said that Hakimullah Mehsud had been selected leader of the TTP.

Reported death

After the alleged death of

in mid-January, 2010, Faqir Mohammed was one of the highest level leaders. Malik Noor Jamal alias ''Maulana Toofan'' was reported to have been appointed as head of the TTP after Mehsud's death but his leadership may not have been entirely accepted as there were also reports of deadly clashes between Toofan's men and those of a TTP leader in Kurram. Pakistan launched an air attack on a building where it was thought that Faqir Mohammed was having a meeting with Taliban figures Fateh Mohammad and Qari Ziaur Rehman. Fateh Mohammed was quickly confirmed as dead but the death of the other two was not known immediately. Within days, Faqir Mohammed gave a telephone interview and claimed that he was not present at the attack and that all senior officials had survived.

Cross-border raids

Faqir Mohammed launched attacks on Pakistani border posts from Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province, across the border with Pakistan's Bajaur Agency, and was hosted by

Qari Zia-ur-Rahman Qari Ziaur Rahman is a citizen of Afghanistan who is reported to be a leader of the Taliban's and al-Qaeda's leadership. He was believed to have been killed in March 2011 during an attack on militants by the Pakistani military, however Ziaur Ra ...

. Mohammed claimed responsibility for a 4 July 2011, attack on a paramilitary checkpoint and for similar attacks in June 2011 on several border villages in Bajaur. During a radio broadcast Mohammed stated, "Our fighters carried out these two attacks from Afghanistan, and we will launch more such attacks inside Afghanistan and in Pakistan."

TTP demotion

In early March 2012 the TTP announced that Faqir had been demoted from his role as ''naib amir'' and would be "considered a common fighter." The main TTP spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, reported that Faqir Mohammed had been conducting peace talks with the Pakistani government without the approval of TTP leadership.

Arrest

On 18 February 2013, Maulvi Faqir was arrested along with his four accomplices by Afghan Intelligence Officials while he was trying to enter

Pakistan's Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...

Tirah Valley The Tirah also spelled Terah ( ps, تیراہ) also called the Tirah Valley (), is a mountainous tract located in the Khyber district, lying between the Khyber Pass and the Khanki Valley in Pakistan. Society Lying close to the Pak-Afghan borde ...

from Afghanistan's Nangarhar province.

Release

Faqir was released by the Afghan Taliban in August 2021 when it freed thousands of prisoners as it overran Afghanistan.

2021 Kunar Strike

On 16 December 2021, reports of an attack of undetermined nature on a compound in the Kunar province targeting Faqir Mohammad emerged.

BBC Pashto BBC Pashto ( ps, بي بي سي پښتو) is the Pashto-language station of the BBC World Service. It was launched in August 1981, and reaches out to the over 50-60 million Pashto speakers in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as the Pashtun diasp ...

cited multiple Taliban officials with conflicting accounts; Bilal Karimi, deputy spokesman for the Afghan Taliban said there were 3 rocket strikes by Pakistan in the Kunar region but failed to report any targets or confirm injuries or casualties, the article further quoted un-named local

Afghan Taliban The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalist, militant Islamist, jihadist, and Pashtu ...

sources from Kunar who corroborated that it was a drone strike, further adding the attack supposedly targeted Faqir Mohammad's compound. A

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was est ...

article later quoted Taliban sources that a drone strike targeting Faqir Mohammad's house in Kunar had failed to explode. The drone strike came amidst ceasefire talks between the Pakistani Government and the TTP breaking down and on the 7th anniversary of APS Peshawar Massacre by TTP that left 148 dead including 132 students, the drone strike is yet to be claimed by a state, or a non-state actor.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mohammed, Faqir 1970s births Living people Pashtun people Taliban leaders Year of birth uncertain Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan politicians Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan members People from Bajaur District Haqqani network Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List Individuals designated as terrorists by the United States government