Militant commander who facilitated Peshawar school attack killed in Khyber

Zahir Shah Sherazi

PESHAWAR: A key militant commander Saddam, who was responsible for facilitating the Peshawar school massacre, was killed by security forces in Khyber Agency's Jamrud area on Thursday night.

Political Agent of Khyber Agency Shahab Ali Shah, while speaking at a press conference in Peshawar, said that Saddam was killed in the Gundi area of Jamrud, adding that one of his accomplices was also arrested in an injured condition.

He said that as a key operational commander of the Tariq Gedar group of Tehreek-i-Taliban (TTP), Saddam had facilitated the Taliban gunmen who had launched the attack on Army Public School in Peshawar.

He was also said to be the mastermind behind the 2013 attack on a polio team in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa which killed 11 security personnel

Saddam was also involved in killing eight scouts personnel along with the deaths of various of tribal elders, he said.

Separately, Shah said that Operation Khyber One had extended to other areas of Khyber Agency and that militants are being hunted down.

Intensifying their efforts to counter militants in Khyber, security forces have upped action in the region in October.

In response to a query, Shah said that the area in Tirah from where the Mangal Bagh FM radio is operational has not been cleared by security forces as yet.

Courtesy: Dawn