ISLAMABAD/KARACHI: A US drone strike has killed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Mulla Fazalullah in Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province, sources within the group told Arab News.
“Fazalullah died along with other commanders,” a TTP source said, adding that the group will issue an official statement in the next 24 hours. The TTP’s spokesman did not reply to an email from Arab News.
Voice of America quoted US Army Lt. Col. Martin O’Donnell as saying: “US forces conducted a counterterrorism strike June 13 in Kunar province, close to the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which targeted a senior leader of a designated terrorist organization.”
A Pakistani intelligence report obtained by Arab News on Friday said a drone strike had been carried out on a car carrying Fazalullah in the Marorah area of Kunar after he had attended an iftar.
Fazalullah, who escaped after the Pakistani military carried out a major counterterror operation in the northwestern Swat valley in 2009, had regrouped his fighters in the border region of Afghanistan, according to security officials.
He was blamed for many deadly attacks, including the 2014 attack on an army-run school in Peshawar that killed nearly 150 students and teachers.
He was also accused of ordering the attempted killing of Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai in Swat in 2012.
Fazalullah was appointed TTP chief after a US drone killed his predecessor Hakimullah Mehsud in the North Waziristan region.
Fazalullah’s son Abdullah,17, and 20 other militants were killed in a US drone strike in Kunar.
Fazalullah’s deputy, Noor Wali Mehsud, is most likely to succeed him, said the TTP source. Mehsud, 40, was made deputy after the killing of Khalid Sajna in a drone strike, and was the TTP’s Karachi chief from June 2013 until May 2015.
Mehsud is author of the book “Inqilab-e-Mehsud,” in which he claimed to have assassinated former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
US drone strike kills Taliban chief
US drone strike kills Taliban chief
- Pakistani intelligence report, suggested earlier Friday that a drone strike has been carried out at Marorah area of Kunar province in Afghanistan and reportedly Fazalullah and four other commanders, Umar, Imran, Sajad and Abubker have been killed
- Taliban sources confirmed to Arab News that Mulla Fazlullah has died in the drone strikes along with other commanders and that the outfit will issue an official statement within next 24 hours
US congresswoman supports censure of colleague over comments against Arabs, Muslims
- Republican Randy Fine ‘spreading hate,’ Democrat Robin Kelly tells Arab News
- ‘Members of Congress should not be targeting Muslims for political gain’
CHICAGO: Illinois Congresswoman Robin Kelly has said she supports calls in the US House to censure Florida Congressman Randy Fine, who has repeatedly made derogatory comments about Muslims and Arabs on his official social media accounts.
Kelly, a Democrat, denounced anti-Muslim and anti-Arab statements made by Fine, a Republican, saying she expects a censure resolution to be put together by House members possibly next week.
“There’s just no room for hate. That’s just the bottom line. I’ve seen hate. It causes people to lose their lives. It causes people to not have the same opportunities as other people. It causes people to have extra stress, extra trauma. And to categorize a whole group of people is so unfair,” Kelly told Arab News.
“I come from a family with a lot of different ethnicities or cultures, and I’ve seen the damage that hate has done in categorizing any one community.
“The Islamic community is just always presented as the bad guy in the movies and on TV … Being a person of color and seeing things that even my own family have gone through, I’m just very sensitive to it.”
Last month, when a supporter of New York’s Muslim Mayor Zohran Mamdani said on social media that dogs have no place in a Muslim home, Fine wrote: “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”
Then on Feb. 20, Fine introduced to Congress the “Protecting Puppies from Sharia Act,” cosponsored by nine Republicans.
Fine has been criticized in the past for making Islamophobic and anti-Arab comments on his social medial pages.
Last May, when Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib said it was “a crime to use starvation as a weapon in Gaza,” Fine responded: “Tell your fellow Muslim terrorists to release the hostages and surrender. Until then, #StarveAway.”
During his election campaign in December 2023, in response to an anonymous poster on X who criticized delays in getting food trucks into Gaza, Fine wrote: “Stop the trucks. Let them eat rockets. There are plenty of those. #Bombsaway.”
Before running for Congress, responding to a New York Times report and photo of 67 Arab children killed by Israel, he said: “Thanks for the pic.”
Muslim groups in Florida have been complaining about Fine’s rhetoric since 2021, including after he sent a private Instagram message to a Florida Muslim saying: “Go blow yourself up!”
Kelly said she is also disturbed by the comments of Fine’s allies, citing them as a broader undercurrent of Islamophobia rising in the US.
She insisted that Islamophobia is no different than antisemitism or racism against other groups, including African Americans like herself.
Fine and Tennessee Congressman Andy Ogles “are spreading hate and should be censured,” Kelly wrote on her own Facebook page this past week.
“Our country is already divided enough, members of Congress should not be targeting Muslims for political gain.”
Ogles, a cosponsor of the “Protecting Puppies from Sharia Act,” declared: “Muslims don’t belong in American society. Pluralism is a lie.”
Kelly, who was elected to Congress in 2013, said: “I think they should all be censured. I say to people that feel the Islamophobia, ‘Don’t get weary, don’t get lost in the chaos. That’s what they want you to do. You can’t go in your house and close the door. You have to be a voice. You can’t stay on the sidelines because this isn’t acceptable.’”
Arab News reached out to Fine for comment.
