Defense official: U.S. drone kills Taliban leader

KABUL — A U.S. drone strike in northeastern Kunar province killed Pakistan Taliban chief Mullah Fazlullah, the insurgent leader who ordered the assassination of Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, an Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman said Friday.

In a telephone interview, Mohammad Radmanish said Fazlullah and two other insurgents were killed Thursday morning, just hours before Afghanistan’s Taliban began a three-day cease fire to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr. The three-day holiday follows the end of Islam’s holy month of Ramadan when devout adherents fast from sunrise to sunset.

However, Sakhi Mashwani, a Parliamentarian from Kunar province said Fazlullah, along with five other insurgents, died when the strike slammed into the vehicle in which they were driving.

Mashwani said dozens of people, including Fazlullah’s brother, Moheen Dada, gathered Friday in the Ghaziabad district of Kunar province, to offer prayers for the dead Taliban leader.

According to a statement attributed to U.S. Forces-Afghanistan spokesman Lt. Col Martin O’Donnell, the U.S. carried out a “counterterrorism strike” Thursday in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan targeting “a senior leader of a designated terrorist organization.”

The statement did not say whether the strike had killed anyone and did not identify Fazlullah as the target. However, the statement did note that the drone attack did not violate a cease-fire announcement made June 7 by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. The Taliban’s promise of a temporary truce came on Monday.

It was Yousafzai’s open call for girls’ education and criticism of the Taliban that infuriated Fazlullah. She was just 14 when she survived the assassination attempt in 2012. Her return to her hometown earlier this year seemed a particular triumph as it was also to open a school funded by a charity she established to promote girls education globally.

She has often said that Fazlullah’s attempts to silence her backfired and instead he amplified her voice around the world.