The terrorist who is believed to be the mastermind behind Pakistan’s Army Public School massacre, which killed 144 children and staff, is believed to have been killed in a us drone strike, according to senior Pakistani officials.
Advertisement
An official said they had credible reports of Mansour having been killed with Saifullah, who was in charge of Taliban suicide bombers, the Dawn reported.
A United States official in Kabul confirmed the airstrike. According to TTP the attack was intended as a strong warning to the Pakistani Army to not target the terror group. Another official said that they were 90 percent sure Saifullah had been killed, but were not completely certain.
The massacre on December 16, 2014, left 144 students and staff members dead after seven gunmen of the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) stormed the APS in Peshawar. The State Department’s announcement came four days after a drone strike killed Afghan Taliban leader Akhtar Mansour in Balochistan on May 21. It is widely considered one of the most high-profile terrorist attacks in Pakistan in recent memory. It was one of the worst terrorist attacks which prompted the government to declare an all-out war against terrorist outfits in the country.
The drone strike targeted the hideout of Pakistani militants in Afghanistan, another Pakistani official said.
Naray was the chief of the Geedar group of militants, which is active in the provincial capital Peshawar and adjacent areas. He was held responsible for the September 2015 attack on a Pakistan Air Force base in Peshawar’s Badaber area, which killed 29 people.
Advertisement
Umar Mansoor claimed responsibility for planning the attack as well as a separate attack on Bacha Khan University in Charsadda on January 20 this year, in which 22 people, majority students and teachers, were killed.
