Peshawar school massacre mastermind killed

KABUL border, an official said on Friday.

Saddam, a member of the Tehreek-i-Taliban’s Tariq Group, was killed in the Gundi area of Jamrud sub-district by security forces during an operation on Thursday night.

One of his accomplices was captured alive, the region’s top administrative officer told media persons.

Shahab Ali Shah, the political agent, told a press conference Saddam was a key operational commander of Tariq Gedar group. Saddam had allegedly facilitated the seven attackers, who had attacked the army-run school December 16, killing 150 people, mostly children.

Saddam was also believed to be behind a 2013 attack on a polio vaccination team in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in which around a dozen security personnel were killed.

Separately, seven militants, including three foreigners, were killed on Friday in two separate drone strikes in the restive North Waziristan Agency.

The first strike took place near the Kund area of Shawal hitting the compound of Punjabi Taliban commander, Qari Imran.

Four insurgents died in the strike, but it could not be ascertained if Imran was among them. Three Uzbek fighters were killed in the second drone strike in the Mangroti area of Shawal on a compound.  

The volatile North Waziristan region borders Afghanistan and his home to local and foreign militants.

PAN Monitor/rm/ma

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