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Taliban Leader Killed in U.S. Airstrike in Afghanistan
The spokesman of MoD Mohammad Radmanish said that Fazlullah and two other insurgents were killed early Thursday morning.
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 near 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.
Mullah Fazlullah was named TTP chief after the death of Hakimullah Mehsud in a drone strike in November 2013. The TTP leader had a reputation as a ruthless commander prepared to do anything to enforce his uncompromising interpretation of Islamic law.
In 2006 he began delivering fiery sermons on his own FM station, earning the nickname “Mullah Radio”, railing against polio vaccination programmes and girls’ education. Three years later, the TTP under his command made an unsuccessful attempt to kill 11-year-old Malala Yousufzai.
Mullah Fazlullah was designated a global terrorist by the United States and carried a bounty of $5 million. He had been on the run since his loyalists were defeated in a major military operation in Swat district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in 2009.