Taliban mastermind of Army base attack killed in air strike

It comes after 31 Afghan forces were killed in a suicide attack

Afghan forces have killed the Taliban mastermind of a suicide car bomb attack that left 31 security personnel dead, officials said on Monday.

Hamza Waziristani was killed in an air strike overnight in the eastern province of Ghazni, where the bomber struck an Afghan military base on Sunday.

“The mastermind behind yesterday’s terrorist attack on the (Ghazni) base was killed along with seven other terrorists,” the Defence Ministry said in a statement.

Ministry spokesman Fawad Aman told AFP that Waziristani was a Taliban militant from the Pakistani border region of Waziristan.

The attack was one of the deadliest in months targeting government forces in Afghanistan, where violence has surged since the start of peace talks between President Ashraf Ghani’s administration and the Taliban in Qatar.

The Taliban often do not comment on deadly attacks.

The insurgents have launched near daily attacks against Afghan forces, primarily in rural areas, since signing a deal with Washington in February that paved the way for the withdrawal of foreign troops by May 2021.