TTP chief Mullah Fazlullah killed in US drone strike, confirms Afghanistan

Afghan Ministry of Defense spokesperson on Friday confirmed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader Mullah Fazlullah was killed in a US drone strike in Afghanistan's northeastern Kunar province on June 13.

The Afghan Ministry of Defense spokesperson, Mohammad Radmanish, told CNN that Mullah Fazlullah, who led the TTP from 2013, was killed in the US strike on Wednesday (June 13).

US forces had conducted the strike close to the border of Pakistan and targeted a "senior leader of a designated terrorist organisation,” Lieutenant-Colonel Martin O’Donnell, a spokesman for the US forces in Afghanistan, had said a day earlier.

O'Donnell, however, did not specify that Fazullah was the target.

A US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to the Voice of America, said the strike late Wednesday targeted Mullah Fazlullah, the chief of the banned Taliban outfit that has waged a decade-long insurgency in the South Asian nation.

Mullah Fazlul­lah was named TTP chief after the death of Hakimu­llah Mehsud in a drone strike in November 2013.

Fazlullah, notorious for attacks on APS, Malala 

Fazlullah was the region's most-wanted militant, notorious for attacks including a 2014 Peshawar school massacre that killed 132 children and the 2012 shooting of schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, who was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In March, the United States offered a $5 million reward for information on Fazlullah.

Fazlullah emerged as the leader of the Taliban in the Swat Valley, northwest of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, more than a decade ago. He was known as “Mullah Radio” for his fiery sermons broadcast over a radio channel.

He was reviled in Pakistan for the 2014 assault on Army Public School in the city of Peshawar in which TTP gunmen shot dead at least 132 children.

He is also believed to have ordered the 2012 shooting of then-15-year-old Malala Yousafzai over her advocacy of girls’ education.

Although Taliban extremists still unleash attacks, the group has lost control of all territory in Pakistan since its December 2014 attack on the army school.

The TTP has also threatened attacks against the US homeland and had claimed responsibility for a failed 2010 bomb attack in New York City’s Times Square.

Ceasefire

The strike that killed Fazlullah comes amid a ceasefire between the Afghan Taliban and government security forces to mark the end of the holy month of Ramazan.

General John Nicholson, the commander of the US Forces Afghanistan and the NATO-led Resolute Support Mission, said earlier the US would adhere to the ceasefire announced by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, which did not include US counter-terrorism operations against other terror groups.

"As previously stated, the ceasefire does not include US counter-terrorism efforts against [Daesh], Al-Qaida, and other regional and international terrorist groups, or the inherent right of US and international forces to defend ourselves if attacked," he had said.