Pakistani security forces killed a commander who helped to plan last week's school attack in Peshawar that left 132 children dead, a government spokesman said Friday. The commander of the Pakistani Taliban's Tariq Gedar group was identified only as "Saddam." He was killed in a gunfight Wednesday in Jamrud, about five miles from where the horrific siege took place, Shahab Ali, a spokesman for Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, told reporters.
A total of 145 people, including three soldiers, were killed during the Dec. 16 massacre at the military-run school — the deadliest terrorist assault by Pakistani militants since 2007. Meanwhile, two suspected U.S. drones fired missiles at militant hideouts Friday in Pakistan's North Waziristan region, killing at least seven Pakistani Taliban fighters, Pakistani intelligence officials told Reuters.
IN-DEPTH
- Death 'All Around Me': Victims Relive Pakistan School Massacre
- 'We Are All Sickened': Peshawar Attackers Are Dead, Ideology Is Not
- Pakistan School Attack: NBC News Visits the Scene of Taliban Attack
— Waj Khan, Mushtaq Yusufzai and Elisha Fieldstadt
