Pakistan Taliban chief Fazlullah killed in US drone strike in Afghanistan

Maulana Fazlullah, the dreaded chief of Pakistani Taliban, has been killed in a United States drone strike in Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province, an Afghan Defence Ministry official confirmed on Friday. 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 military said on Thursday 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 organization,” Lieutenant Colonel Martin O’Donnell said in a statement.