Key Pakistani Taliban leader reportedly killed in airstrike in Afghanistan

[Geee]

Fox News:

 

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – A NATO airstrike in eastern Afghanistan killed a dozen militants including a senior leader of the Taliban in Pakistan, the international military coalition said Saturday, dealing a blow to armed extremists operating on both sides of the countries' porous border.

The strike in Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province killed Mullah Dadullah, the self-proclaimed Taliban leader in Pakistan's Bajur tribal area that lies across the border, late Friday afternoon, coalition spokesman Maj. Martyn Crighton said.

Dadullah reportedly took over after Bajur's former Pakistani Taliban leader, Maulvi Faqir Mohammed, fled to Afghanistan to avoid Pakistani army operations.

He was responsible for the movement of fighters and weapons, as well as attacks against Afghan and coalition forces, a coalition statement said Saturday. It added that Dadullah's deputy, identified only as Shakir, was also killed in the strike along with 10 other militants, and that an assessment made in conjunction with Afghan security forces determined no civilians had been killed or injured.

The airstrike was in Kunar's Shigal district, which lies about 15 kilometers (about nine miles) from the Pakistani border, but Crighton would not say whether an unmanned drone or manned aircraft had launched the missiles.

A spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, Ahsanullah Ahsan, said Dadullah was killed in a drone strike in Kunar. He said Maulana Abu Bakar has been named as the new chief of the Bajur region.

Pakistani intelligence officials said Dadullah and 19 others were killed in the attack. Initially, they said the strike was on Pakistani territory, but later they conceded it was in Afghanistan.

Militant hideouts along the Afghan-Pakistan border have been a source of tension for both governments as well as for the coalition, with each saying the others are not doing enough to expel the various pro-Taliban factions.