Taliban chief behind Malala attack bid killed in US strike

Fazlullah, designated as global terrorist, carried a bounty of $5m

Washington,/Islamaba

d June 15: Maulana Fazlullah, the dreaded chief of Pakistani Taliban, has been killed in a US drone strike in Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province, an Afghan defence ministry official confirmed today.

Fazlullah, who has been designated as a global terrorist by the US and carried a bounty of $5 million, had been on the run since his loyalists were routed in a major military operation in Pakistan's Swat district in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province in 2009.

The US says Fazlullah ordered the 2012 attempted assassination of Malala Yousafzai, who became a global symbol of the fight for girls' rights to schooling.

The US military said yesterday it carried out a strike targeting a senior militant leader in Afghanistan. It, however, did not identify the militant. “US forces conducted a counterterrorism strike, June 13, in Kunar province, close to the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which targeted a senior leader of a designated terrorist organisation,” Lieutenant Colonel Martin O'Donnell said in a statement.

Afghan Ministry of Defence spokesman Mohammad Radmanish confirmed to CNN that Fazlullah, who is believed to be in his forties, was killed in the strike on Wednesday. The Express Tribune, citing sources, also said the drone strike that took place in the Nur Gul Kalay village of Dangam district killed Fazlullah and four other Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) commanders. Fazlullah, also known by the alias Radio Mullah or Maulana Radio due to his long sermons on a private radio channel, and his commanders were having an Iftar party at a compound when a remotely piloted US aircraft targeted them, reports said.

The TTP did not confirm the death of its chief in the drone strike.

Fazlullah had directed numerous high-profile attacks against the US and Pakistani targets since he was appointed the group’s leader in 2013, including the December 2014 attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar that killed 151 people.

– AP People attend Id-ul-Fitr prayers outside of Shah-e-Dushamshera mosque in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Friday.

FAZLULLAH HAD directed numerous attacks, including the attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar that killed 151 people, including more than 130 children. HE AND his commanders were having an Iftar party when a remotely piloted US aircraft targeted...