The Pakistan Taliban announced that it had appointed a new leader on Saturday after the militant group confirmed for the first time that its former chief Maulana Fazlullah was killed in a U.S. drone strike last week. His group — Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) — was behind the massacre of more than 150 people, including more than 100 school-children, at a Peshawar school in December 2014.
June 14 strike
U.S. forces targeted Fazlullah in a counterterrorism strike on June 14 in Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province, close to the border with Pakistan.
In a statement on Saturday, TTP spokesman Mohammad Khurasani confirmed that Fazlullah was killed in the U.S. drone strike. “It is a matter of pride that all leaders of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan have been martyred by infidels,” Khurasani said, referring to Fazlullah’s two predecessors who were also killed in drone strikes.
The group’s shura council elected Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud to replace him, he added.
Pakistan’s Army has called Fazlullah’s apparent death a “positive development”.
The militant leader went into hiding in Afghanistan in 2009 and his death “gives relief to scores of Pakistani families who fell victims to TTP terror including the (school) massacre”, the Army said.
