Daily Times

BARMAL: A militant wanted for involvement in attacks on GHQ and Sri Lankan cricket team was killed in a US drone strike in Barmal district of Paktika province in Afghanistan, sources said on Monday.

Qari Yaseen was said to be involved in the attack on Sri Lankan cricket team in 2009. The drone strike carried out in Barmal targeted Yaseen and three of his accomplices who were travelling in a vehicle.

Yaseen belonged to the Lodhran district of Punjab and was part of various terrorist attacks carried out in Pakistan. The attacks included those on ISI offices in Lahore and Multan, GHQ in Rawalpindi, Data Darbar, Marriott Hotel and the one in RA Bazaar, Rawalpindi. Cases had already been lodged against him.

He was also said to be a facilitator for al Qaeda and Jundullah in Pakistan, an expert at making bombs, including IEDs, and a trainer for terrorists.

Last week, US President Donald Trump gave the Central Intelligence Agency new authority to conduct drone attacks against suspected militants.

The United States was the first to use unmanned aircraft fitted with missiles to kill suspects in the years after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.

Critics of the targeted killing programme question whether the strikes create more militants than they kill.

On March 2, a suspected missile-firing US drone killed two Afghan Taliban in a village near the Afghan border.

A government official identified one of the men killed as Qari Abdullah Subari, a senior commander from the Afghan Taliban. An intelligence source said the other man was also a Taliban member named Shakir.