Key Pakistani Taliban figure killed in Afghanistan

The U.S.-led military force in Afghanistan says a senior leader of the Pakistani Taliban has been killed in a coalition airstrike.

A spokesman says the strike in Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province killed Mullah Dadullah, the self-proclaimed Taliban leader in Pakistan’s Bajur tribal area. Bajur lies across the border from Kunar.

Coalition spokesman Maj. Martyn Crighton on Saturday confirmed Dadullah’s death in an airstrike the previous afternoon.

Dadullah reportedly took over after Bajur’s former Pakistani Taliban leader, Maulvi Faqir Mohammed, fled to Afghanistan to avoid Pakistani army operations.

Taliban-affiliated militants operate on both sides of the porous Afghan-Pakistan border. They target both coalition forces in Afghanistan and the Pakistani military.