Tag: InternationalNews

{Government says 2,839 military personnel detained as coup put down despite pockets of resistance holding out in Ankara.}

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has spoken defiantly to crowds of jubilant supporters in Istanbul, vowing to stay in power hours after an army faction dramatically tried to topple the government.

Erdogan’s arrival in Istanbul from the coastal city of Marmaris came after Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told broadcaster NTV on Saturday that the situation in the country was “largely under control”.

The army’s acting chief of staff, Umit Dundar, told a news conference that 104 coup plotters had been killed. He said that 90 other people had been killed in violence, adding that 47 of them were civilians.

Yildirim told a news conference that 1,440 people had been injured and 2,839 military personnel had been detained.

The permanent army chief of staff, Hulusi Akar, was freed by government forces having been held hostage at an army base in Ankara for a period, an official told Al Jazeera.

Speaking at a news conference, Erdogan said the attempt to push him from power was “an act of treason” and that those behind the plot would “pay a heavy price”. He said he intended to stay with his “people” and not go anywhere.

“Shortly after I left [Marmaris] I have been told they bombed the locations where I was,” he told reporters. “I assume they thought I was still there when they bombed those places.”

Speaking to thousands of supporters outside Ataturk Airport on Saturday morning, Erdogan said the coup plotters had pointed “the people’s guns against the people.

“The president, whom 52 percent of the people brought to power, is in charge,” Erdogan said. “This government brought to power by the people, is in charge.They won’t succeed as long as we stand against them by risking everything.”

As he spoke, live footage showed dozens of soldiers involved in the coup surrendering on one of the bridges across the Bosphorus in Istanbul, abandoning their tanks with their hands raised in the air.

“Clearly the cleansing of the military from those elements who joined or supported the coup is already under way,” Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, Marwan Bishara, said.

“This is going to continue for days to come, and I think there are probably going to be tribunals within the military to see who supported the coup.”

Greek officials said a Turkish military helicopter landed in the city of Alexandroupolis, close to the border, and that eight people had claimed asylum. Turkey’s foreign minister said the government had requested their extradition.

Bombs dropped on Ankara

There were still pockets of resistance in the capital Ankara into Saturday morning, an official told Al Jazeera.

In Ankara, jets dropped bombs over the Bestepe district, where the presidential palace is located, with plumes of black smoke seen rising early on Saturday.

There were also reports of an explosion at the parliament building in the capital.

Al Jazeera’s Ece Goksedef, reporting from Ankara on Saturday morning (9am local time, 06:00 GMT), said the city had been quiet for several hours.

Military jets were still in the sky above the capital, but there has been no sound of fighting, Goksedef said, adding that there were only a few locations in the country where the coup plotters were holding out.

The prime minister said the military had been ordered by the presidency to shoot down planes hijacked by those involved in the coup attempt and that jets had been scrambled.

Officials said fighter jets had shot down a helicopter used by anti-government forces over Ankara.

Erdogan said that the attempted coup was the work of supporters of US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen, who the president has long accused of attempting to use his followers in the judiciary and military to overthrow the government.

Gulen condemned the bid to overthrow Turkey’s leader, saying “governments should be won through a process of free and fair elections, not force”, according to a report by the DPA news agency.

Earlier, thousands of people had heeded a call from the president to take to the streets and protest against the attempted coup. A similar message was recevied later in the day by many people in Turkey via SMS message, agencies reported.

{{‘We will overcome this’}}

Late on Friday, sections of the army had officially declared a coup and martial law , saying they had “taken control of the country” as Istanbul’s main airport was closed and fighter jets were seen in the skies.

Turkey’s national intelligence agency MIT was targeted by hijacked helicopters but the coup attempt was “foiled”, its spokesman told NTV television.

Yildirim also told NTV that a no-fly zone had been declared over Ankara.

News of the attempt first broke when army factions blocked bridges, fighter jets were spotted in the skies and gunfire and loud explosions were heard in Istanbul, the country’s biggest city, and in Ankara.

The headquarters of state-run broadcaster TRT World were taken over and a presenter read out a statement from the group behind the plot, which she later said she was forced to do at gunpoint.

“We know they have been acting outside the chain of command,” Cemalettin Hasimi, a government spokesman told Al Jazeera, referring to the sections of the army behind the coup attempt.

In Gaziantep, a city in the south, Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr reported that supporters of Erdogan had quickly taken to the streets after he appeared on CNN Turk television urging them to do so. Cars could be seen streaming towards the airport, honking their horns.

“We will overcome this,” Erdogan had said, speaking on a video call to a mobile phone held up to the camera by a presenter.

{Syrian leader confident in TV interview as US State Secretary arrives in Moscow with proposals for military cooperation.}

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said he has never faced pressure from Russia to step aside, as US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Moscow seeking to revive stalled peace efforts.

Speaking to NBC News in Damascus, Assad insisted his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had never raised the issue of his departure or a political transition.

“Only the Syrian people define who’s going to be the president, when to come, and when to go. They never said a single word regarding this,” he said.

Assad’s fate is a key question in efforts to bring about a negotiated settlement to Syria’s five-year civil war.

Hopes for the existing peace process rest on the UN-backed blueprint sketched out by the 22-nation, US and Russian-led International Syria Support Group.

Under this plan, signed by both Syria’s ally Iran and Assad’s pro-rebel foe Saudi Arabia, a nationwide ceasefire will precede Geneva-based talks on “political transition”.

But there has been little progress towards a resumption of talks that had been expected to take place this month.

And the prospects for a political transition beginning by August, as laid out in the plan, now appear slim.

Kerry arrived later on Thursday in Moscow, a close ally of Assad’s government that launched air strikes in support of regime forces last September.

He met with Putin at the Kremlin and both said before the meeting they hoped they could make progress on Syria. Kerry was also to meet Lavrov on Friday.

“I hope after today’s consultations you’ll be able to advise [US President Obama] of the progress made and possible headway for us to make,” Putin told Kerry, according to a pool reporter at the start of the talks.

For his part, Kerry told Putin: “Hopefully we’ll be able to make some genuine progress that is measurable and implementable and that can make a difference in the course of events in Syria.

The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Washington was to offer to cooperate with Russia in joint military action against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) and the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, al-Nusra Front.

In Paris before heading to Moscow, Kerry did not deny the report, but refused to discuss the proposal in detail.

“The suggestion is that there’s going to be a plan on the table for the US and Russia to get together with air strikes. According to the leak, the detail suggests there will be active cooperation with flights and all attacks, and a ‘joint implementation group’ – as it has been described in the document,” said Al Jazeera’s Andrew Simmons, reporting from Moscow.

Sergey Karagonov, a former adviser to the Russian president, told Al Jazeera: “The problem is that he [Kerry] represents a lame duck. The general mood in the US is very negative towards Russia, towards cooperation.”

He added that while Lavrov and Kerry did not want to “exacerbate things together … it does not look like the problem will be solved easily”.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Thursday that while there was “some speculation that an agreement may be reached”, it was “not clear that that will happen”.

“At present, the United States is not conducting or coordinating military operations with Russia,” he said.

Kerry’s visit to Moscow came amid fresh concerns over food aid in Syria. The UN on Wednesday said that along with other aid agencies, it has enough food in rebel-held eastern Aleppo to feed 145,000 people for one month, as pro-government forces continued to make progress on encircling and besieging the area, which has a population of as many as 300,000 people.

Kerry ‘extremely frustrated’

Moscow and Washington brokered a landmark partial ceasefire in Syria in February, but it has since all but collapsed amid continued heavy fighting.

Kerry’s spokesman John Kirby told reporters his boss was “extremely frustrated” with the failure of peace efforts and “his patience was growing thin”.

In Washington, many observers have criticised Kerry’s outreach to Russia on Syria, arguing he has been strung along by Putin as the latter seeks to protect his client Assad.

But Kirby insisted the administration is not being naive, and that Thursday’s visit to Moscow, Kerry’s third this year, would “probe the sincerity” of Putin’s promises.

Syria’s conflict began in 2011 with the repression of anti-government demonstrations and has evolved into a complex multi-front war that has killed more than 280,000 people and forced millions from their homes.

Efforts to bring an end to the war have taken on greater urgency since the emergence of ISIL, which seized control of large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in mid-2014.

The group has committed widespread atrocities in areas under its control and organised or inspired a wave of attacks across the Middle East and in Western cities.

A US-led coalition is carrying out air strikes against ISIL fighters in Syria and Iraq and recent months have seen ISIL lose a significant amount of territory.

Colvin ‘responsible’ for her own death

According to the Post, which cited sections of what it said was a draft agreement, US and Russian commanders would set up a joint command and control centre to direct intensified air strikes against the groups.

Such a deal is likely to face criticism that it amounts to a tacit acceptance of Putin’s efforts to shore up Assad’s regime.

In his interview with NBC, Assad also said a US reporter killed in alleged Syrian government bombardment in 2012 was responsible for her own death.

Marie Colvin, a 56-year-old war correspondent working for British newspaper The Sunday Times, died in the rebel-held Baba Amr district of Syria’s third city Homs.

“It’s a war and she came illegally to Syria. She worked with the terrorists, and because she came illegally, she’s been responsible of everything that befall on her,” Assad said, speaking in English.

Asked if she was responsible for her own death, Assad replied “of course”, though he denied that his forces had targeted her.

His comments came days after relatives of Colvin filed a case in a US court alleging Assad’s regime targeted her to stop her covering government atrocities.

{Romanian police arrest 38 for allegedly forcing dozens of victims to work under severe abusive and violent conditions.}

Romanian police have detained 38 people suspected of holding dozens of vulnerable young men and boys like slaves for years, chaining them up and forcing them to do various types of work, or fight each other for entertainment.

The arrests took place on Thursday following large-scale police raids the day before in Berevoesti, 170km north of the capital, Bucharest. Five people, including two boys aged 10 and 12, were freed after the raids.

The captives were “attached with chains and straps … beaten (and) humiliated”, starved of food and fed on scraps, prosecutors from the DIICOT organised crime investigation unit said.

They were “left fully naked, cold and hot water being thrown alternatively on them. Their hands and feet were tied and they were told to eat off the ground or to fight each other to amuse the suspects,” they said.

Since 2008, about 40 victims were “captured in public places, near churches or train stations, or at their homes” and forced to do household chores, look after animals, beg in the streets, and do illegal logging, prosecutors said.

Some of the victims are believed to have suffered sexual abuse as well, prosecutors said.

“Their treatment was terrible,” said DIICOT spokeswoman Mihaela Porime.

Ninety people from Gamacesti, a Roma district within the municipality of Berevoesti in the Arges region, were initially thought to have been involved.

Those freed on Wednesday “had visible traces of open wounds all over their bodies, particularly their scalps. They appeared physically and psychologically traumatised,” Adrian Macovei, from the DGASPC child protection agency, told local media.

But local residents told journalists on Thursday that they did not believe the claims, saying that the boys had been homeless orphans and that they were not mistreated.

“They were fed, they had money and they did not want to leave,” a woman, who declined to give her name, told The Associated Press news agency in Gamacesti.

“These people, if they came to work in our home, we’d give them food, we gave them shelter, we didn’t do anything bad to them,” another woman, who also refused to give her name, told the AFP news agency.

“They were unhappy, with no mother or father. We felt sorry for them. They were like our children,” she added.

But Florin Proca, the mayor of the town on Berevoesti, which has administrative oversight for local villages including Gamacesti, said he was “stunned”.

“I couldn’t imagine that in 2016 such soulless people could exist. I have seen shocking photos of the slaves, people held against their will, abused,” he said.

Local child protection spokeswoman Iuliana Matei said that two victims and 19 children of suspects have been placed in care centres.

{PM Theresa May finalises details of new government as shock appointment of Boris Johnson as foreign secretary sinks in.}

Britain’s new Prime Minister Theresa May wanted Britain to stay in the European Union, but the government she has unveiled leaves little doubt that she intends to fulfill voters’ instructions and take the UK out of the 28-nation bloc.

May on Thursday finalised the details of the cabinet. Leading eurosceptics such as former London mayor Boris Johnson and David Davis secured top international jobs, as many members of predecessor David Cameron’s administration were swept away.

When she was running for the Conservative leadership, May promised that “Brexit means Brexit,” and her appointments of Johnson, Davis and Trade Secretary Liam Fox signal to EU leaders that, no matter what her own feelings on the matter may be, she will not be watering down Britain’s commitment to leaving the EU.

Johnson, Britain’s new foreign secretary, said on Thursday that it was an opportunity to be seized – “reshaping Britain’s global profile and identity as a great global player”.

On her first full day in office, May removed Cameron allies including former Chancellor George Osborne and Michael Gove, the justice secretary who himself had run for Conservative leader.

In her first speech as prime minister outside 10 Downing Street on Wednesday, May said: “We will make Britain a country that works not for a privileged few, but for every one of us.”

Some 52 percent of Britons who voted on June 23 wanted to leave the EU, responding to calls by leading Brexit – of British exit – campaigner Johnson. But his appointment as foreign secretary has caused some consternation around the world.

{{Gaffe-prone Johnson}}

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said Johnson had lied to the British people during the EU referendum, and now had “his back against the wall to defend his country and to clarify his relationship with Europe.”

Johnson is famous for distinctly undiplomatic, and at times racist, gaffes.

In April, he suggested that US President Barack Obama had an “ancestral dislike” of Britain because he is part-Kenyan. Asked late on Wednesday whom he would apologise to first, Johnson said “the United States of America will be at the front of the queue.”

In 2002, in a regular column for The Telegraph – a newspaper which urged its readers to vote for a Brexit – Johnson called black people “picaninnies” and referred to the people of Congo as bloodthirsty “tribal warriors” with “watermelon smiles”.

When she was running for the Conservative leadership, May promised that “Brexit means Brexit,” and her appointments of Johnson, Davis and Trade Secretary Liam Fox signal to EU leaders that, no matter what her own feelings on the matter may be, she will not be watering down Britain’s commitment to leaving the EU.

Johnson, Britain’s new foreign secretary, said on Thursday that it was an opportunity to be seized – “reshaping Britain’s global profile and identity as a great global player”.

On her first full day in office, May removed Cameron allies including former Chancellor George Osborne and Michael Gove, the justice secretary who himself had run for Conservative leader.

In her first speech as prime minister outside 10 Downing Street on Wednesday, May said: “We will make Britain a country that works not for a privileged few, but for every one of us.”

Some 52 percent of Britons who voted on June 23 wanted to leave the EU, responding to calls by leading Brexit – of British exit – campaigner Johnson. But his appointment as foreign secretary has caused some consternation around the world.

Gaffe-prone Johnson

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said Johnson had lied to the British people during the EU referendum, and now had “his back against the wall to defend his country and to clarify his relationship with Europe.”

Johnson is famous for distinctly undiplomatic, and at times racist, gaffes.

In April, he suggested that US President Barack Obama had an “ancestral dislike” of Britain because he is part-Kenyan. Asked late on Wednesday whom he would apologise to first, Johnson said “the United States of America will be at the front of the queue.”

In 2002, in a regular column for The Telegraph – a newspaper which urged its readers to vote for a Brexit – Johnson called black people “picaninnies” and referred to the people of Congo as bloodthirsty “tribal warriors” with “watermelon smiles”.

EU leaders are pressuring Britain to open formal exit talks sooner and warning that the UK cannot have access to the single European market of 500 million people without accepting the free movement of EU citizens, a sticking point for many pro-Brexit Britons.

The foreign policy spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party in Parliament said that many current British suggestions for future relations with the EU were “unworkable”.

“Free access to the common market means, among other things, accepting other fundamental freedoms such as the freedom of movement,” said Juergen Hardt.

European Parliament President Martin Schulz said the EU would “work constructively” with the new British government.

Newly appointed Treasury chief Philip Hammond, meanwhile, sought to reassure the markets.

Hammond acknowledged that the Brexit vote has had “a chilling effect” on investment, saying the main “challenge is to stabilise the economy, [and] send signals of confidence about the future”.

“Britain is open for business,” he said. “We are not turning our back on the world.”

{At least 84 killed when attacker drives lorry into crowds celebrating Bastille Day in France.}

At least 84 people were killed and 100 injured in the French city of Nice when a man deliberately drove a lorry into a crowd celebrating the country’s main national holiday, authorities said.

The attacker behind the wheel on Thursday drove at high speed along the famed Promenade des Anglais seafront, careering into spectators who had been watching a Bastille Day firework display.

Police shot and killed the driver, officials said.

France’s Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said that children were among the dead and 18 people were in a critical condition.

“There’s no denying the terrorist nature of this attack of yet again the most extreme form of violence,” French President Francois Hollande said in an address to the nation in the early hours of Friday.

Hollande said that he would extend a state of emergency – which had been in place since the attacks in Paris last November – for another three months from July 26.

“Nothing will make us yield in our will to fight terrorism. We will further strengthen our actions in Iraq and in Syria. We will continue striking those who attack us on our own soil,” he said, in reference to France’s involvement in a coalition of nations carrying out air strikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group.

The attack happened just as the firework display – which was attended by thousands of people – was ending, at around 11:00pm local time (21:00GMT).

Eric Ciotti, a local MP, said the lorry continuously rammed the crowd over a distance of two kilometres.

Ciotti said on BFM TV that police killed the driver “apparently after an exchange of gunfire”, adding that the truck was loaded with weapons and grenades.

Residents of Nice, a Mediterranean city close to the Italian border, were advised to stay indoors.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. But Nada Bakos, a former CIA analyst, told Al Jazeera that it “looks very similar” to some of the attacks carried out by al-Qaeda and ISIL.

“They were inciting their followers to produce this type of violence,” she said.

{{‘I saw bodies flying’}}

Writing online, Nice Matin journalist Damien Allemand, who was on the scene, said the firework display had finished and the crowd was about to leave when they heard a noise and screams.

“A fraction of a second later, an enormous white truck came along at a crazy speed, turning the wheel to mow down the maximum number of people,” he said.

“I saw bodies flying like bowling pins along its route. Heard noises, cries that I will never forget.”

Allemand said that he and others took shelter in a nearby restaurant. He continued to hear people shouting for missing family members. He ventured out and saw bodies, blood and body parts all along the road.

“This evening, it was horror,” he said.

The Paris prosecutor’s office opened an investigation for “murder, attempted murder in an organised group linked to a terrorist enterprise”. The investigation was being handled by France’s intelligence agency and judicial police.

An eyewitness told the Associated Press news agency he saw the driver emerge from the lorry shooting, after ramming into the crowd.

“There was carnage on the road,” Wassim Bouhlel, a witness, told AP. “Bodies everywhere.”

In a video viewed over 2,500 times on Facebook, a trembling Tarubi Wahid Mosta told of the horror on the promenade, where he took photos of an abandoned doll and pushchair and came home with a victim’s dog.

“I almost stepped on a corpse, it was horrible. It looked like a battlefield,” he said.

In a series of posts he described a sense of helplessness faced with the carnage.

“All these bodies and their families … they spent hours on the ground holding the cold hands of bodies dismembered by the truck. You can’t even speak to them or comfort them.”

Al Jazeera reporter David Coady was also at the scene.

“I was enjoying the Bastille Day fireworks just like thousands of other people at the promenade in Nice,” he said.

“I was just walking back after the fireworks had finished. I looked towards the truck and I thought it was a bit odd, because the roads were shut down and there were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people walking along. But then, from the direction of the truck, I started hearing screaming and then people started running. And so I joined all those people in running away from there.”

{{Obama: ‘A horrific terrorist attack’}}

US President Barack Obama condemned “what appears to be a horrific terrorist attack”.

European Council President Donald Tusk said it was a “tragic paradox” that the victims of the attack in Nice were celebrating “liberty, equality and fraternity” – France’s motto – on the country’s national day.

Tusk tweeted a photograph of himself and other European and Asian leaders standing in tribute to the Nice victims at an Asia-Europe summit in Mongolia.

Hollande, who was in the south of France at the time of the attack but raced back to Paris to a national crisis centre, had hours earlier said that a state of emergency put in place after November’s Paris attacks would not be extended when it expires on July 26.

{Ahead of regional summit, the Philippines says Beijing should respect international tribunal’s South China Sea verdict.}

The Philippines has said that Beijing should respect an international tribunal’s ruling that rejected Chinese claims to most of the South China Sea, adding that it will raise the issue at a regional summit.

The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled on Tuesday that China’s claims to the resource-rich and strategically vital South China Sea had no legal basis.

China, which had boycotted the case brought by the Philippines, vowed to ignore the ruling, saying the UN-backed tribunal had no jurisdiction over the case and accused it of bias.

Beijing on Wednesday also raised the prospect of confrontation in the sea, and threatened to introduce an air-defence zone over the sea that would give its military authority over foreign aircraft.

On Friday, Philippine Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay will attend a two-day Asia-Europe summit, known as ASEM, in Mongolia along with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.

“Secretary Yasay will discuss within the context of ASEM’s agenda the Philippines’ peaceful and rules-based approach on the South China Sea and the need for parties to respect the recent decision,” the foreign affairs department said in a statement, in the strongest response from the Philippines to the tribunal’s verdict.

China had said on Monday that the maritime dispute should not be included on the ASEM agenda, with assistant foreign minister Kong Xuanyou insisting the meeting was “not an appropriate venue” to discuss the issue.

The ASEM summit brings together nations from Asia and Europe, including other sea claimants Vietnam and Malaysia.

In his first comments immediately after the ruling, Yasay said the Philippines welcomed the decision but he did not urge China to respect or abide by it.

Yasay called then only for “all those concerned to exercise restraint and sobriety”.

Yasay will represent newly elected President Rodrigo Duterte at ASEM. The president has signalled the he wants to avoid a major diplomatic falling-out with China over the issue.

In his first cabinet meeting since being sworn into office on June 30, Duterte said that he would not “taunt or flaunt” a favourable ruling and aim for a “soft landing”.

The Philippines filed the legal challenge against China in 2013 under Duterte’s predecessor, Benigno Aquino.

China claims nearly all of the sea, even waters approaching the coasts of the Philippines and other Southeast Asian nations.

The ruling is expected to further increase tensions in the region, where China’s increased military assertiveness has spread concern among its smaller neighbours and is a point of confrontation with the US.

It could also spur Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei, which also have overlapping claims in the South China Sea, to file similar claims.

{Fighting intensifies across Syria as air strikes hit a market place in Idlib and shells pound Homs.}

A series of air strikes on a market place in Syria’s Idlib and shelling and bombings in the central Homs province have killed dozens of Syrians, according to a rights group.

At least 12 people, including three children and a woman, were killed in strikes on Wednesday in the Idlib town of Ariha, the United Kingdom-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The group added that “the death toll is expected to rise” because several people are in a critical condition.

Al Jazeera’s Adham Abu Hossam, reporting from Ariha, said the war planes “launched four consecutive air strikes on main areas in the town”.

“Three of these air strikes targeted main markets inside the town,” he said. “Many shopkeepers have been killed, and many families are left without providers.”

It was not immediately clear if the war planes were the Syrian government’s or Russian.

An estimated 20 people were killed by government forces’ shelling and air strikes on Rastan, a city in the Homs province of central Syria.

The Syrian Observatory group also reported clashes in Quneitra, as well as air strikes in the southern Damascus countryside and elsewhere.

SANA, the Syrian government’s state news agency, said at least one person was killed by rebel shelling and 20 others injured in the government-controlled part of Aleppo on Wednesday.

On Monday, the Syrian government unilaterally extended a 72-hour ceasefire. On the ground, however, fighting continued without pause in many parts of the country.

Syria’s uprising started with mostly unarmed protests against President Bashar al-Assad in March 2011, but it quickly grew into a full-scale civil war between rebels and government forces.

An estimated 280,000 have been killed in the five years of bloodshed, according to the Syrian Observatory.

{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, died in Nangarhar province over the weekend, security officials from both countries said on Wednesday.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.

“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.”

Pakistani officials said Narai died on Sunday, while the Pentagon said his death took place on Saturday.

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.

The attacks killed at least 21 and 29 people, respectively.

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.

“Only through continued cooperation will we collectively succeed in eliminating terrorist safe havens in the region.”

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.

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.