New Delhi: Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has confirmed that the group's deputy chief Khalid Mehsud alias 'Commander Sajna' was killed in a US drone strike on February 8 in Pakistan's northwestern tribal region.

"We confirm that the deputy head of the TTP Khalid Mehsud died in a drone strike," Taliban spokesman Muhammad Khurassani said in a text message to reporters.

Taliban chief Mullah Fazlullah has appointed commander Mufti Noor WaliWali as his new deputy, Khurassaniadded.

Officials in Pakistan had earlier reported about Sajna's death in a US strike.

He was a leading figure of the Taliban and both Pakistani and American forces were after him for a long time. He was battle-hardened with experience of fighting in Afghanistan.

Sajna, in his early 40s, was believed to be involved in an attack on a naval base in Karachi and was credited with masterminding a 2012 jailbreak in which the Taliban freed nearly 400 inmates in the northwestern city of Bannu.

When Mullah Fazlullah became the third TTP leader after Hakimullah's death in a drone strike in 2014, Sajna refused to accept him as the Taliban chief.

Fazlullah tried to sidelineMehsud by naming his rival as the head of the TTP in South Waziristan - but was forced to give in after Mehsud's supporters fought and defeated the Taliban chief's nominees, it added.