Militant commander who facilitated Peshawar school attack killed

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A key militant commander Saddam, who was responsible for facilitating the Peshawar school massacre, was killed by security forces in Khyber Agency’s Jamrud area on Thursday night.

While speaking at a press conference in Peshawar, Shahab Ali Shah, political agent of the tribal area Khyber Agency, said that Saddam was killed in the Gundi area of Jamrud. He said one of Saddam’s accomplices was found injured and was arrested.

Shah said that as a key operational commander of the Tariq Gedar group of Tehreek-i-Taliban (TTP), Saddam facilitated the Taliban gunmen who launched the attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar, which left more than a hundred people killed.

Saddam was also said to be the mastermind behind the 2013 attack on a polio team in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which killed 11 security personnel. He was also involved in the deaths of eight scouts personnel and various tribal elders.

Separately, Shah said that Operation Khyber One had extended to other areas of Khyber Agency and that militants are being hunted down.

Intensifying their efforts to counter militants in Khyber, security forces have upped action in the region in October.

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