PESHAWAR: Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has called up army chief GeneralQamar Javed Bajwa to confirm the death of Pakistani Taliban’s top commander.
The pictures of the purported graves of Mullah Fazlullah and his fourlieutenants killed in the June 13 US drone strike in north-easternAfghanistan were also made public.
President Ghani telephoned Gen Qamar Friday night – hours after Afghan andAmerican officials formally confirmed the death of the most ferocious chiefof the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, the umbrella of terrorist groupsresponsible for most violence in the country.
Mullah Fazlullah and his four commanders – identified as Abu Bakar, Sajid,Umar, and Imran – were killed in the US drone strike in the Dangam districtof the Afghan province of Kunar, near the Pakistan border.
Mullah Fazlullah and his loyalists had been hiding in north-easternAfghanistan since they were defeated in a massive operation by thePakistani military in Swat district in 2009.
A 17-year-old son of the ultra-extremist cleric, Abdullah, along with 20other terrorists had been killed in a US drone strike, also in Kunarprovince in March, this year.
“The killing of Fazlullah is a positive development,” the military’s mediawing, the ISPR, said in a statement in which it also confirmed thatPresident Ghani called army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa.
“It [Fazlullah’s killing] gives relief to scores of Pakistani families whofell victim to [the] TTP terror [campaign] including the APS massacre,” theISPR said in the statement.