WASHINGTON: A US airstrike near Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan killed the mastermind of a 2014 attack on a Pakistani school that killed some 150 people, mainly children, American and Pakistani officials said Wednesday.
Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said the airstrike Saturday killed “known terrorist leader” Umar Khalifa, who was known by several other names including Khalifa Umar Mansoor. Cook said he was killed along with four other “enemy combatants” in an airstrike targeting members of an Islamic State affiliate known as Khorasan Province.
Cook said the attack was conducted in Nangarhar province, where the Islamic State has established a foothold. He called Khalifa a leader in the Tariq Gidar Group, which the State Department on May 25 designated as a global terrorist group. It said the group is linked to the Pakistani Taliban and is based in Dara Adam Khiel, Pakistan.
“Khalifa orchestrated multiple terrorist operations in Pakistan to include the January 2016 attack on Bacha Khan University, the September 2015 Badaber Air Force Base attack, and the December 2014 Peshawar school attack that resulted in the deaths of more than 130 children,” Cook said in a written statement.
Pakistan Army spokesman Lt. Gen. Asim Bajwa said a US Army general had confirmed the death in a phone call to Pakistan’s army chief Gen. Raheel Sharif.
Bajwa said it was a US drone strike. Cook wasn’t specific about what kind of aircraft was used.
Pakistan had asked the US for help in eliminating Pakistani militants who have taken refuge in Afghanistan.
Pakistani media reported a drone strike in eastern Afghanistan earlier this week, saying it killed several militants.
Mansoor, also known as Umar Naray and Khalid Khurasani, had claimed responsibility for training and dispatching a Taliban suicide squad to the school in Peshawar in December 2014.
Shortly after the school attack, the main branch of the Pakistani Taliban, which has killed tens of thousands of people in recent years in its campaign to overthrow the government and impose Islamic law, disowned Mansoor and his group.
Mansoor’s killing could indicate improved relations between Washington and Islamabad, allies that have had fraught ties over the years. Relations were strained by a US drone strike in May that killed Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour as he was driving through Pakistan’s Baluchistan province.
Pakistan is at war with the Pakistani Taliban, but is widely seen as turning a blind eye to the Afghan Taliban and other extremist groups, viewing them as a way to enhance its regional influence.
In his statement, Cook said the successful attack underscored what he called common security interests shared with Pakistan and Afghanistan.
“The United States maintains a robust counter-terrorism partnership with Afghanistan and Pakistan and we recognize the sacrifices made on behalf of our respective militaries to pursue terrorists for the sake of regional peace and security,” Cook said.
“Only through continued cooperation will we collectively succeed in eliminating terrorist safehavens in the region,” he added.
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Asif Shahzad reported from Islamabad
Pakistani school attack mastermind killed in US airstrike
Pakistani school attack mastermind killed in US airstrike
Duterte killed thousands, ICC prosecutors say
- His defense team countered that Duterte had murdered no one and that the prosecution’s argument was based on “hearsay” and “conjecture“
- “He’s proud of his killings. He wants to be remembered for them,” said Julian Nicholls, summing up for the prosecution
THE HAGUE: Rodrigo Duterte killed thousands during his anti-drug campaign, an International Criminal Court prosecutor alleged Friday, as the crimes against humanity hearing against the former Philippines president wrapped up.
His defense team countered that Duterte had murdered no one and that the prosecution’s argument was based on “hearsay” and “conjecture,” falling far short of the bar needed to confirm the charges against him.
“He’s proud of his killings. He wants to be remembered for them,” said Julian Nicholls, summing up for the prosecution.
“Decades of murdering his own people, murdering the children of the Philippines, and he claims that he did it all for his country. He doesn’t deny it.
“He ran a death squad in Davao (city) that he created. He ran it for over 20 years before he became president. His promise was to kill thousands and he did.”
Throughout the week, a panel of three judges has heard from the prosecution, defense, and victims’ representatives as they weigh whether to proceed to a full trial.
Duterte has not been in the courtroom. The defense says he is too ill to attend. Victims say he does not want to face the loved ones of those he killed.
He faces three counts of crimes against humanity over his so-called “war on drugs” when he was mayor of Davao City and then as president of the Philippines.
The prosecution has put forward 76 cases of alleged murder, which they say is an “emblematic fraction” of those killed, which rights groups say number thousands.
Duterte’s defense lawyer Nicholas Kaufman, summing up his case, said that if his client could be faulted for anything, it was his “inappropriate choice of language.”
“But he murdered nobody,” Kaufman told the court.
He urged the judges not to confirm the charges and to free Duterte to “live out the rest of his days in peace” in the Philippines.
He said that during a visit to explain proceedings to his client, he “lost the desire to follow me within a minute.”
However, he cited the former leader as asking how the prosecutors could prove that he murdered anyone, again denying the charges against him.
Gilbert Andres, a lawyer representing victims, summed up by saying that his clients experienced defense rebuttals “like their murdered loved-ones are being murdered again.”
He called on the court to confirm the charges so that the victims can be “reintegrated into their communities.”
Following the hearing, judges will have up to 60 days to issue a written verdict.
They can confirm all of the charges and proceed to trial, throw out some of the charges, or reject the case outright, in which case Duterte would walk free.
