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Mastermind Of Pakistan School Massacres Killed By U.S. Drone Strike In Afghanistan


A video released by a faction within the Pakistani Taliban on January 22 shows their leader, Umar Mansoor (center), with militants delivering a statement from an undisclosed location.
A video released by a faction within the Pakistani Taliban on January 22 shows their leader, Umar Mansoor (center), with militants delivering a statement from an undisclosed location.

Pakistan's military says that the mastermind of a 2014 attack on a Pakistani school that killed about 150 people, mainly children, has been killed by a U.S. drone strike in Afghanistan.

Pakistani Army spokesman Lieutenant General Asim Bajwa said on July 13 that a U.S. Army general had confirmed the death of Taliban leader Khalifa Umar Mansoor in a phone call to Pakistan's army chief, General Raheel Sharif.

The Pentagon on July 13 confirmed the report, saying Mansoor was killed on July 9 by an air strike in Afghanistan's eastern province of Nangarhar along with four other 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.

The attack killed about 150 people, 144 of them children.

Mansoor also planned an attack on a university in northwestern Pakistan earlier in 2016 that killed 21 students and teachers.

Based on reporting by AP, Reuters, and Dawn

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