Noor Wali Mehsud, an internationally designated terrorist who leads Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a UN-listed group allied with al-Qaeda is reported to have been killed in Kabul on Thursday night.
The United States named him a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2019, and the UN added him to its ISIL (Da’esh) and Al-Qaida sanctions list in 2020.
Formal recognition that his role drives violence across the region.
From madrassa student to TTP chief
After TTP chief Mullah Fazlullah was killed in 2018, the group’s Central Shura elevated Mehsud, restoring Mehsud tribal control over an organisation founded by Baitullah and Hakimullah Mehsud.
He had already served as Baitullah’s deputy, a TTP “judge,” media manager, and head of the Karachi chapter (2013–2015).
Earlier, he fought alongside the Afghan Taliban in the 1990s and re-entered Afghanistan after 9/11 with Islamist fighters before joining TTP in 2003.
A violent playbook: cities, soldiers, and civilians
Mehsud’s own account catalogs the TTP toolkit: improvised explosive devices, targeted assassinations of pro-state elders, suicide bombings in cities.
Moreover, assaults on forts and recruitment centres, prison breaks, kidnappings for ransom, and a sustained terror campaign in Karachi against security forces and political rallies of secular parties.
The ideologue who justifies terror and claims Former PM Benazir’s assassination
Mehsud is not only operational; he is an ideologue who argues for falsely claimed “defensive jihad” inside Pakistan.
He urges working “in tandem” with al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, positions that normalise violence and harden extremist alliances.
In 2017 he published a 690-page book (Inqilab-e-Mehsud) that, remarkably, claims TTP’s role in the 2007 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and names operatives who conducted the terrorist attack.
His writings also carry Islamo-Pashtun nationalist tones and denigrate other ethnic groups, further stoking sectarian and communal divides.
Internationally designated terrorist
Washington’s 2019 designation under counter terrorism authorities and the UN’s 2020 listing place Mehsud under global financial and travel sanctions for terrorist activity.
These are not symbolic labels; they are legal tools to cut his networks off from money, logistics, and safe haven.
TTP in recent has weakened due to leadership losses, Pakistan’s military operations, and public revulsion at mass-casualty attacks.
Whereas analysts note the organisation remains a threat that adapts in the shadows and online.
Mehsud’s immediate tasks had included re-stitching fractured factions and rebuilding presence.
His own writings argue for renewed alliances with Al-Qaeda and other foreign militants, an agenda that would intensify cross-border terrorism if allowed to regenerate.
Noor Wali Mehsud was a sanctioned terrorist leader who blends doctrinal propaganda with bloodshed on the ground.
Urban bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, and open alignment with al-Qaeda underscores why he is internationally designated Terrorist and why any narrative of “restraint” under his tenure were both misleading and dangerous.
