Updated
Pakistani security forces say they have killed a Taliban commander who they believe facilitated the Peshawar school massacre of nearly 150 people, mostly children.
The commander has been named by local media as "Saddam", and was killed in a shootout with security forces in the Khyber tribal area 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.
"Six of his accomplices were injured and arrested."
He added that Saddam is believed to have facilitated the Peshawar school attack, although the extent or capacity of his alleged involvement was not yet known.
"Authorities are currently interrogating the injured terrorists," Mr Shah told reporters in Peshawar.
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, according to officials.
Militants targeted at known Taliban hub
The military said it killed 23 militants in aerial strikes in the troubled northwest near the Afghan border on Friday evening (local time).
"In very effective and precise aerial strikes in North Waziristan, 23 terrorists including some important commanders were killed," the military said in a statement.
"A huge underground ammunition dump and tunnel system have been destroyed."
The Taliban and other militants have taken refuge in Khyber from a major army offensive launched in June in North Waziristan, a known hub for Al Qaeda and Taliban militants since the early 2000s.
Meanwhile, a US drone strike on a Taliban compound in North Waziristan killed at least four militants on Friday, officials said, the second such incident in a week.
Pakistan has ramped up its anti-terror strategy in the wake of the December 16 slaughter at an army-run school in Peshawar, where 134 children were among the victims killed by heavily-armed Taliban militants.
Prime minister Nawaz Sharif has announced lifting of a six-year moratorium on the death penalty, reinstating it for terrorism-related cases.
Officials said on Monday that Pakistan plans to execute around 500 militants in the coming weeks.
AFP
Topics: unrest-conflict-and-war, terrorism, prisons-and-punishment, pakistan
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