{"id":26895,"date":"2016-07-14T03:05:36","date_gmt":"2016-07-14T03:05:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/pakistan-school-attack-mastermind-killed-in-us\/"},"modified":"2016-07-14T03:07:38","modified_gmt":"2016-07-14T03:07:38","slug":"pakistan-school-attack-mastermind-killed-in-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/pakistan-school-attack-mastermind-killed-in-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan ‘school attack mastermind’ killed in US strike"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Pakistani Taliban leader Umar Narai, wanted for the 2014 Peshawar massacre, has died in Afghanistan, officials say.}<\/p>\n

A Pakistani Taliban leader accused of orchestrating a 2014 school massacre has been killed in a US drone strike in Afghanistan, Pakistani and American military officials have said. <\/p>\n

Umar Narai, also known as Umar Khalifa and Khalid Khurasani, died in Nangarhar province over the weekend, security officials from both countries said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

He was wanted for his role in a Taliban attack at a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar in December 2014 that killed more than 150 people, most of them children.<\/p>\n

Narai “was killed along with four other enemy combatants in a US Forces-Afghanistan air strike targeting Islamic State-Khorasan Province members,” Peter Cook, the Pentagon press secretary, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The US designated the “Khorasan Province” – an affiliate of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also know as ISIS) group based in Afghanistan and Pakistan – a “terrorist” organisation in 2015.<\/p>\n

US General John Nicholson called Pakistan’s army chief General Raheel Sharif to confirm Narai’s death, military spokesman Lieutenant General Asim Bajwa said on Twitter.<\/p>\n

“I believe for his own group, a faction of the Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) known as the ‘Gedar group’, it is a big loss because there is no leadership among them, but for the TTP as whole, Umar’s death is not considered as a big blow, as they have a leadership in the name of Fazlullah,” Ayaz Wazir, a former Pakistani Ambassador told Al Jazeera. <\/p>\n

“It is indeed a victory for Pakistan but he was killed in Afghanistan so the credit goes to the Americans. However, I think the tip was given from the Pakistan side about his whereabouts and the American acted upon it which resulted in his death.”<\/p>\n

Pakistani officials said Narai died on Sunday, while the Pentagon said his death took place on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Narai was also behind a deadly Taliban attack on Bacha Khan University in the northwestern town of Charsadda in January, and another Taliban assault on a Peshawar air force base in September 2015, Cook said.<\/p>\n

The attacks killed at least 21 and 29 people, respectively.<\/p>\n

The drone strike that killed Narai “underscores the common security interests shared by the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan on matters of terrorism”, Cook said.<\/p>\n

“Only through continued cooperation will we collectively succeed in eliminating terrorist safe havens in the region.”<\/p>\n

The Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban, did not comment on the reports of Narai’s death. The armed group is waging war against the Pakistani state and is separate from the Afghan Taliban.<\/p>\n

The Pakistan army launched Operation Zarb-e-Azb under US pressure in 2014, in a bid to wipe out fighters and their bases in the North Waziristan tribal area and bring an end to violence that has cost the country thousands of lives.<\/p>\n

\"Narai<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Pakistani Taliban leader Umar Narai, wanted for the 2014 Peshawar massacre, has died in Afghanistan, officials say.} A Pakistani Taliban leader accused of orchestrating a 2014 school massacre has been killed in a US drone strike in Afghanistan, Pakistani and American military officials have said. Umar Narai, also known as Umar Khalifa and Khalid Khurasani, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-26895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26895\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26895"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=26895"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=26895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}