Faqir Mohammed

Maulvi Faqir Mohammed (Pashto/Urdu: فقیر محمد; c. 1970) is a member of the Mohmand tribe and, until March 2012, a deputy leader of the Pakistani Taliban umbrella group Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. 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. In July 2011, he resurfaced on the air broadcasting radio shows out of Afghanistan. He was captured in Afghanistan on February 17, 2013.

He was born in Chopatra, in Bajaur Agency, Pakistan. Until the age of 20, he was a student unknown for any militancy. He began his education studying in a local madrassa under Maulana Abdus Salam. His first mentor was Maulana Sufi Mohammad, to whom he was introduced in 1993 at the age of 22. Sufi Mohammad is the founder of Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), or Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Laws.

He has one wife in a tribal society, where polygamy is not uncommon.

Mohammed was a staunch activist of TNSM. He and his two sons were captured in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, and were held in Dera Ismail Khan jail in southern Pakistan. However, he successfully fled back to Pakistan, where his knowledge of the territory has been useful to Al-Qaeda operatives.

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 militants. Faqir has publicly stated that he has close ties to Ayman al-Zawahiri.

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