Pakistani Taliban leader Mullah Fazlullah has been killed in a US-Afghan air strike in Afghanistan, a senior Afghan Defence Ministry official said on Friday, a killing likely to ease tension between the United States and Pakistan, according to Reuters.
An official at the NATO-led Resolute Support mission confirmed Fazlullah was killed on Thursday.
The US military said earlier in Washington it had carried out a strike aimed at a senior militant figure in the eastern Afghan province of Kunar, which is on the Pakistani border, and one US official said the target was believed to have been Fazlullah.
Fazlullah was Pakistan’s most-wanted militant, notorious for attacks including a 2014 school massacre that killed 132 children and the 2012 shooting of schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, who was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
“I confirm that Mullah Fazlullah, leader of the Pakistani Taliban, has been killed in a joint air operation in the border area of Marawera district of Kunar province,” Mohammad Radmanish, spokesman for Afghan defence ministry, told the news agency, adding the air strike was carried out at about 9:00 am on Thursday.
US Forces-Afghanistan spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Martin O’Donnell said US forces conducted a “counter-terrorism strike” which targeted “a senior leader of a designated terrorist organisation”.
