Troops backed by a peace militia conducted a joint military operation in Bajaur Agency on Saturday, killing at least 28 militants, government sources said on Saturday, as a NATO air strike in eastern Afghanistan killed Bajaur Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah the other day.
The operation was launched at Saturday noon in Bajwar area of Salarzai tehsil, a remote village close to the Afghan border, after a rebel rocket attack, a local military official said.
Several suspected Taliban were wounded during the operation while 15 were arrested alive, officials said, adding that four to six hideouts of the militants had been destroyed.
Two members of the peace militia sustained injuries in the offensive.
Pakistani forces launched a massive operation in Bajaur last August. Military officials said the offensive has left more than 1,500 al Qaeda and Taliban militants dead, while more than 70 troops have been killed in the attacks.
The security forces had also captured more than 300 foreign militants, mainly from Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, the military said.
Meanwhile in Afghanistan, NATO and Taliban sources said that Mullah Dadullah and said several of his comrades were killed in an airstrike on Friday.
A NATO statement did not say who carried out the assault but the alliance is alone in having the air power to conduct such an operation. It said Dadullah’s deputy, Shakir, was also killed.
“Dadullah, also known as Jamal, was responsible for the movement of fighters and weapons, as well as attacks against Afghan and coalition forces,” the statement said.
It said Afghan and coalition forces backing the Kabul government had “conducted a post-strike assessment” and found that there had been no civilian casualties or damage to civilian property.
Pakistani Taliban officials, as well as Pakistani intelligence officials said Dadullah had been killed in a house in eastern Konar province, along with 12 bodyguards. They said he was the leader of the Taliban in Pakistan’s Bajaur tribal agency, near the border with Afghanistan.
Dadullah, in his 40s, replaced Maulvi Faqir Mohammad last year after Mohammad told the media that the Taliban were holding peace talks with the government.
The Pakistani Taliban replaced Mohammad with Dadullah to undercut the secret negotiations, Taliban commanders say.
Some Pakistani Taliban fighters and commanders were forced to flee into Afghanistan after the Pakistani army launched a series of offensives against them in 2008 and 2009. But they still carry out cross-border raids on Pakistani armed forces. In June, the Pakistani Taliban said they beheaded 17 Pakistani soldiers in a cross-border raid.
