Pakistan Taliban commander killed in US drone strike

The deputy chief of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Khan Saeed Mehsud alias Khalid Saj, was killed in the Thursday night drone strike along with three others, the Express Tribune reported. 

Saj was also heading the Mehsud faction of the Taliban in Pakistan’s northwestern Waziristan Agency. The TTP confirmed his killing and the appointment of Maulvi Khatir as his successor.  The Express Tribune report said that the other three casualties were Saj’s nephew Ismail and two guards. 

Saj’s vehicle was targeted in Margha area of Barmal district in Afghanistan’s Paktika province bordering North Waziristan, reports said. “The vehicle was completed destroyed,” an intelligence official told the daily, adding that there were at least three reported drone strikes on the Pakistan-Afghan border in the last 24 hours. (IANS)