In this image made from video broadcast on November 7, 2013, undated footage of Mullah Fazlullah is shown on a projector in Pakistan (AP Photo via AP Video, File)
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — An Afghan Defense Ministry official said a US drone strike in northeastern Kunar province has killed Pakistan Taliban chief Mullah Fazlullah.
Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammad Radmanish told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Friday that Fazlullah and two other insurgents were killed early Thursday morning.
According to a statement attributed to US Forces-Afghanistan spokesman, Lt. Col Martin O’Donnell, the US carried out a “counterterrorism strike” Thursday near the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan targeting “a senior leader of a designated terrorist organization.”
The statement did not say whether the strike had killed anyone and did not identify Fazlullah as the target.
Pakistani rights activist Malala Yousufzai holds bouquets of flowers after addressing the media in Birmingham, central England on October 10, 2014. (photo credit: AFP/OLI SCARFF)
Radmanish said the attack took place in Marawara district, near the border.
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Fazlullah was the commander who planned the attack on teenage activist Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head while on her way home from school in October 2012. She was attacked after speaking out against the Taliban over its interpretation of Islam, which limits girls’ access to education.
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