(Previous Incident Code: T005ci )

Two possible drones strikes were reported to have hit on the Afghan-Pakistan border, but, like a strike reportedly carried out the day before, it was unclear on what side of the border they fell.

“Four unmanned drones fired six missiles in Monday’s (October 16) attack, and four more were dropped in two strikes on Tuesday (October 17),” Baseer Khan Wazir, the top administrative official in the Kurram Agency told Reuters. “Twenty people were killed yesterday, mostly from the Afghan Taliban, and 11 more were killed in today’s attacks.” He said all three took place on the Afghan side. The Inter-Services Public Relations, the media wing of the Pakistan Armed Forces, has said the strikes occurred in Afghanistan.

Taliban sources allegedly said six members of the Pakistan-linked Haqqani Network were killed in one of the attacks.

The day after, reports of further strikes near the Afghan-Pakistan border surfaced. Various news sites began to report the alleged deaths of two key commanders, but there was much confusion in the reporting. ARY News, Xinhua and Anadolu, for example, reported the death of Umar Mansoor also known as Khalifa Mansour and Umar Naray, a TTP commander believed to have masterminded the 2014 attack on the Army Public School which killed mostly children. But, Geo News reported Umar Khalid Khurasani, the chief of Jamaat ul Ahrar (JuA), had died. A JuA spokesperson confirmed his death to Reuters, saying he was wounded in recent US drone strike in Afghanistan’s Paktia province and died from these injuries on October 18. At least nine close associates of his were also killed, the spokesperson said.

Some of confusion could stem from the TTP’s announcement of Umar Mansoor’s death and his replacement shortly after the border strikes. However it seems the TTP statement didn’t give details of how and when Mansoor died. It may be some media linked his death with the strikes due to the timing of the announcement. The Pentagon confirmed his death in July last year in a US strike. In the entry in our database back then, we have another of his alias as Khalid Khurasani, further confusing things. The Express Tribune suggests the announcement could have been prompted by images of the commander’s body circulating on social media a few days prior.

While the US confirmed carrying out strikes close to the border but on the Afghan side in the entry below, they did not confirm the same for this particular incident. We have recorded this strike as a “C” strike in both our Afghanistan and Pakistan timelines – a placeholder that is not included in the strike and casualty tally.