Pakistan Taliban commander killed in US drone strike

A key Pakistani Taliban commander has been killed in a U.S. drone strike in eastern Afghanistan, Taliban sources confirmed Friday.

Wednesday’s drone strike killed Khan Saeed alias Khalid Sajna, deputy chief of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan.

Saeed was also leading the Mehsud Taliban, a faction of the group in Pakistan’s northwestern Waziristan Agency.

His vehicle was targeted in Margha area of Barmal district in Afghanistan's eastern Paktika province bordering with North Waziristan, his close aide told Anadolu Agency over the phone requesting anonymity due to security concerns.

Two other commanders and the driver were also killed in the attack, he added.

An official from Pakistan army's spy agency Inter-services Intelligence (ISI) confirmed Saeed had been killed in the drone strike.

"Saeed Khan Sajna has been buried near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border," the source told Anadolu Agency, speaking on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on speaking to the media.

Saeed, was wanted by authorities in Pakistan in several cases including suicide attacks on security forces and a 2012 Bannu jailbreak in which 384 prisoners fled.

Saeed is the third Pakistan Taliban commander killed in a US drone strike in Afghanistan during the last six months.

Last October, Umar Mansoor, the suspected mastermind of a school attack in northern Peshawar city that left over 140 people, mostly children, dead in 2014, was killed in a drone strike.

Omar Khalid Khorasani of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, another faction of the militant group, was killed in a similar strike in Afghanistan last November, Pakistani media reported.