ISPR responds to the reports of death of TTP Chief Mullah Fazalullah
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PESHAWAR: Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has called up army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa to confirm the death of Pakistani Taliban’s top commander.
The pictures of the purported graves of Mullah Fazlullah and his four lieutenants killed in the June 13 US drone strike in north-eastern Afghanistan were also made public.
President Ghani telephoned Gen Qamar Friday night – hours after Afghan and American officials formally confirmed the death of the most ferocious chief of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, the umbrella of terrorist groups responsible 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 district of the Afghan province of Kunar, near the Pakistan border.
Mullah Fazlullah and his loyalists had been hiding in north-eastern Afghanistan since they were defeated in a massive operation by the Pakistani military in Swat district in 2009.
A 17-year-old son of the ultra-extremist cleric, Abdullah, along with 20 other terrorists had been killed in a US drone strike, also in Kunar province in March, this year.
“The killing of Fazlullah is a positive development,” the military’s media wing, the ISPR, said in a statement in which it also confirmed that President Ghani called army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa.
“It [Fazlullah’s killing] gives relief to scores of Pakistani families who fell victim to [the] TTP terror [campaign] including the APS massacre,” the ISPR said in the statement.
