Islamabad: An American drone strike killed the leader of the Pakistani Taliban in a border region of Afghanistan, Pakistani officials said. Pakistani intelligence officials said the group’s leader, Mullah Fazlullah, and four other senior commanders were killed in a drone strike in the Afghan province of Kunar, near the Pakistani border. Fazlullah’s death was later confirmed by the Pakistani ministry of defence.
The spokesman for the United States military in Afghanistan, Lt Col Martin O’Donnell, confirmed that the military had carried out a drone strike in Kunar. He said the target was “a senior leader of a designated terrorist organization,” but he did not offer further details or confirm that Fazlullah had been killed. Fazlullah has been the most-wanted militant in Pakistan for years. His organisation has carried out hundreds of attacks against both Pakistani security forces and civilians, including an assault on a school in Peshawar in 2014 that killed 145 people or more, including at least 132 children.
Fazlullah is also believed to have ordered the 2012 shooting of then-15-year-old Malala Yousafzai over her advocacy of girls' education. Yousafzai survived and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014. In March, the state department announced a $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest or capture of Fazullah. The American drone strike came as a long stretch of tension between the United States and Pakistan seemed to be easing. The Trump administration had been increasing pressure on Pakistan until recently, accusing the country of doing too little to help stop the Afghan Taliban’s long insurgency. But in recent months, officials say, the two countries have been cooperating more in hopes of persuading the Afghan Taliban to join peace talks. Pakistani Taliban have not yet confirmed Fazlullah’s death, which has been incorrectly reported before.
