Maulana Fazlullah was always the wild card. As Hakimullah Mehsud's last rites were being read, and emergency conclaves were being summoned across six other tribal agencies to deliberate upon the militant organization's future leadership and policy direction, it was expected that operational control of the TTP would remain with the organization's natural custodians '" the Mehsuds.

But the Mehsuds have increasingly become a house divided. Internal cohesion in the militant outfit was frayed first by the death of Wali-ur-Rehman in May, and then the sacking of longstanding party spokesperson Ehsanullah Ehsan in June after he suggested that the TTP and Afghan Taliban were separate entities. The capture of Hakimullah's close aide Latifullah Mehsud in Afghanistan's Logar province this October was another unexpected blow to the TTP's central command. That Latifullah was picked up, and not eliminated like so many others by surgical drone strikes, has augmented the possibility that the once trusted deputy may have played a part in providing actionable intelligence to the US about the TTP chief's movements. If correct, this is undisputedly symptomatic of deeper fissures colouring the group's social fabric.

Read Fahd Humayun's piece here