Omar Khalid Khorasani was wounded in a recent US drone strike in Afghanistan and died later (Reuters)
The leader of Pakistani terrorist group Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, who planned some of the deadliest suicide bombings in Pakistan over the last year, died today of wounds sustained in a US drone strike in Afghanistan, a spokesman said.
"Our leader, Omar Khalid Khorasani, was wounded in one of the recent drone strikes in Afghanistan. He was wounded badly, and today he was martyred," Asad Mansoor, a Jamaat-ul-Ahrar spokesman, said by telephone.
The killing comes ahead of American Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's visit next week and is likely to further ease tensions between the often-wary allies, as Islamabad has been asking Washington for years to target militants who attack inside Pakistan and then hide over the border in Afghanistan.
A splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar has in the past also backed Middle East-based ISIS and has increasingly targeted religious minorities in Pakistan.
The group claimed responsibility for last year's Easter Sunday bombing in a public park that killed 70 people, many of them Christians, in the eastern city of Lahore.
(Writing by Kay Johnson; Editing by Nick Macfie)
"Our leader, Omar Khalid Khorasani, was wounded in one of the recent drone strikes in Afghanistan. He was wounded badly, and today he was martyred," Asad Mansoor, a Jamaat-ul-Ahrar spokesman, said by telephone.
The killing comes ahead of American Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's visit next week and is likely to further ease tensions between the often-wary allies, as Islamabad has been asking Washington for years to target militants who attack inside Pakistan and then hide over the border in Afghanistan.
A splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar has in the past also backed Middle East-based ISIS and has increasingly targeted religious minorities in Pakistan.
The group claimed responsibility for last year's Easter Sunday bombing in a public park that killed 70 people, many of them Christians, in the eastern city of Lahore.
(Writing by Kay Johnson; Editing by Nick Macfie)
© Thomson Reuters 2017
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