Afghanistan

Pakistani Militant Leader With $3 Million US Bounty Killed in Afghanistan, Sources Say

Abdul Wali, a senior member of the Pakistani Taliban also known as Omar Khalid Khurasani, is said to have died in an explosion while traveling by car

Afghanistan's Paktika province
Spencer Platt/Getty Images

A top Pakistani militant who had a $3 million U.S. bounty on his head has been killed along with three others in Afghanistan, three senior leaders of his group told NBC News.

Abdul Wali, also known as Omar Khalid Khurasani, was killed in an explosion Sunday while traveling by car in the southeastern province of Paktika, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the attack had not yet been publicly announced.

Khurasani was a senior leader of the Pakistani Taliban, known as the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, which seeks to overthrow the nuclear-armed government of Pakistan and replace it with a strict version of Islamic law. Though the Pakistani Taliban are a separate group, they are allied with the Taliban militants who seized back power in Afghanistan as the United States withdrew one year ago.

Khurasani’s death could jeopardize peace talks he was participating in between the TTP and the Pakistani government, which are being facilitated by the Afghan Taliban.

The Pakistani Taliban sources did not say who they believed was responsible for the attack on Khurasani and his three aides.

Read the full story here on NBCNews.com

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