Pakistani Taliban chief killed, says Ghani

kabuL: Afghan President Ashraf Ghani confirmed that Pakistani Taliban chief Maulana Fazlullah had been killed in a US drone strike.

Fazlullah is believed to have ordered the failed 2012 assassination of Malala Yousafzai, who became a global symbol of the fight for girls’ rights to schooling, and who later won the Nobel Peace Prize.

US forces targeted Fazlullah in a counterterrorism strike on Thursday in eastern Kunar province, close to the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, US officials said, without confirming his death.

“I spoke with Prime Minister of #Pakistan Nasir ul Mulk and Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa and confirmed the death of Mullah Fazlullah,” Ghani tweeted on Friday, adding, “his death is the result of tireless human intel led by #Afghan security agencies.”

Ghani added that the Pakistani leaders had assured him the strike was “a great step toward building trust between the two nations”, while urging them to “bring (the) Afghan Taliban residing in Pakistan to the negotiation table”.

Pakistan’s army called Fazlullah’s apparent death a “positive development”.

Fazlullah’s group – Tehreek-eTaliban Pakistan in Urdu – was behind the massacre of more than 150 people at a Peshawar school in December 2014, and nine dead in another attack in December 2017 in the same city.

But the Pentagon would not confirm Fazlullah’s death, saying it can take time to gather definitive proof. — AFP