ISLAMABAD: A senior leader of Jamaat ul Ahrar group breakaway faction and two others have been killed in eastern Afghanistan in clashes with the militia of an Afghan lawmaker, the group’s spokesman and militants aware of the incident said on Thursday. The deceased were identified as Commander Jihadyar Mehsud, the military commission head of a breakaway faction of Jamaatul Ahrar; senior commander Aleem Khan alias Omar Kamal; and Jihadyar’s guard Ilyas Mehsud. They were killed in clashes with supporters of Faridoon Khan Momand, Afghan member of the ‘Olasi Jirga’ (National Assembly). Jihadyar, who had been a close confidant of TTP founder Baitullah Mehsud and his successor Hakimullah Mehsud, recently parted ways with TTP JuA and joined a breakaway faction, Hizbul Ahrar, over differences with Omar Khalid Khorasani, the head of JuA. Jihadyar had joined JuA after the death of Hakimullah Mehsud in a US drone strike in 2013, and became the head the group’s military ‘shura’, or council, a militant leader told Daily Times on Thursday. Published in Daily Times, February 23rd 2018.