(MENAFN- Arab News) ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani Taleban have sacked the movement's influential spokesman according to a statement received by Reuters on Tuesday in a sign of growing divisions within the deeply fractured group.

The move followed last week's release of an audio message purporting to have been recorded by the spokesman Shahidullah Shahid saying he and a group of other commanders had defected to the Middle Eastern militant group Islamic State (IS).

The authenticity of that recording posted online could not be independently verified and Shahidullah's mobile phone has been switched off ever since.

The Taleban leadership said he no longer worked for them and reiterated their support for the Afghan Taleban leader Mullah Omar.

'As far as allegiance to ISIS (Islamic State) is concerned (Taleban leader) Amir Mullah Fazlullah has clarified that our allegiance is to Mullah Mohammad Omar Mujahid' they said in the statement.

The leadership said Shahidullah Shahid was a nom de guerre and the spokesman's real name was Sheikh Maqbool. It did not name his successor.

One Taleban commander told Reuters Shahidullah's pledge of allegiance to IS was a move to seek publicity.

'He used our name and tried to make it big news in the media' the commander said.

The Pakistani Taleban have been deeply divided for years with dozens of smaller groups jostling for influence although the movement itself says its divisions are exaggerated by the Pakistani authorities to discredit the group.

The powerful Mehsud tribe has virtually refused to accept the authority of the group's new leader Mullah Fazlullah who came to power last year after his predecessor was killed in a US drone strike in the remote mountains on the Afghan border.

Moreover militants from the Mohmand region have split from the main Taleban movement and formed a separate group called Jamaat-ul-Ahrar.