File Photo. ISPR-HO—AFP
Local administrator tells press ‘Saddam’ was killed in Khyber during clash between security forces and Taliban.
Security forces have killed a Taliban commander who allegedly facilitated the Peshawar school massacre, which left 150 people dead in the country’s worst ever terror attack, officials said Friday.
Named only as “Saddam,” the militant was killed Thursday night in a gunfight with security forces in Khyber Agency, which borders Peshawar. “Commander Saddam was a dreaded terrorist, who was killed in an exchange of fire with the security forces in Jamrud town of Khyber tribal region,” top local administration official Shahab Ali Shah told a press conference in Peshawar. “Six of his accomplices were injured and arrested.”
He added that Saddam is believed to have facilitated the school attack, although the extent or capacity of his alleged involvement was not yet known. “Authorities are currently interrogating the injured terrorists,” Shah said.
He described Saddam as an important commander in the Pakistani Taliban, or Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and said he had masterminded several bomb attacks. Saddam and his accomplices had been involved in several recent attacks on security forces that had resulted in heavy casualties, Shah said.
The Taliban and other militants have taken refuge in Khyber from a major Army offensive launched in June in North Waziristan.