US State Department has announced in a statement that anyone who gives information about Afghan-based chief of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan MullahFazlullah will be rewarded with $5 million.
US made this announcement on Thursday, after reports started coming in that Fazlullah 's son was killed in a drone strike along with 20 others in Afghanistan.
In the statement it is also said that anyone who provides information on Abdul Wali, head of TTP affiliate and Mangal Bagh , leader of a terrorist group accused of attack NATO convoys will be awarded with $3 million each.
The State Department announcement came as Pakistani Foreign Secretary Tamina Janjua visited Washington for talks with US officials that were expected to focus on improving counter-terrorism cooperation and on US President Donald Trump’s strategy for ending the war in Afghanistan.
Maulana Fazlullah is the leader of the TTP, a terrorist organization that has claimed responsibility for numerous terrorist acts against Pakistani and U.S. interests, including the failed attempt by Faisal Shahzad to detonate an explosive device in New York City’s Times Square on May 1, 2010. Under his leadership, the TTP has also claimed responsibility for the December 16, 2014, attack on a school in Peshawar, Pakistan in which gunmen killed 148 people, including 132 students. Fazlullah also is responsible for the June 2012, beheading of 17 Pakistani soldiers, and the October 9, 2012, shooting of Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai. In 2015, the Department designated Fazlullah as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist under Executive Order 13224, which freezes all of his assets based in the United States or in possession or control of U.S. persons.
Abdul Wali is the leader of Jamaat ul-Ahrar (JUA), a militant faction affiliated with TTP. Under Wali’s leadership, JUA has staged multiple attacks in the region targeting civilians, religious minorities, military personnel, and law enforcement, and was responsible for the killing of two Pakistani employees of the U.S. Consulate in Peshawar in early March 2016.
Mangal Bagh is the leader of Lashkar-e-Islam, a militant faction affiliated with TTP. Under his leadership, LeI operatives have attacked NATO convoys. His group generates revenue from drug trafficking, smuggling, kidnapping, and collection of “taxes” on transit trade between Pakistan and Afghanistan. In September 2007, the Government of Pakistan announced a reward offer of about $60,000 for the capture of, or information leading to the arrest of, Mangal Bagh .
Each of these individuals is believed to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, acts of terrorism that threaten the security of the United States and its nationals. In addition to opposing the Pakistani military, one of TTP’s stated goals is the expulsion of Coalition troops from Afghanistan. The group has demonstrated a close alliance with al-Qa’ida, and, since 2008, has also repeatedly publicly threatened to attack the U.S. homeland.
A suspected US drone strike on a training camp in an isolated part of Afghanistan’s eastern province of Kunar on Wednesday killed more than 20 Pakistani Taliban militants preparing to launch suicide attacks in Pakistan , officials said.
Two Pakistani intelligence officials said the attack, carried out in a village called Saresha Sultan Shah, killed at least two senior figures in the movement, besides someone believed to be a trainer of suicide bombers.
The Pakistani intelligence officials said Wednesday’s drone strike in Kunar, an undeveloped and thickly forested province on the two countries’ border, took place during a visit by senior TTP figures prior to sending the militants into Pakistan .
They said it killed Gul Mohammad, a TTP leader in Bajaur Agency on the Afghan border, and Qari Yaseen, whom officials described as a “master trainer of suicide bombers”. A son of TTP leader Fazlullah Khorasani was also killed, they added.
Sources in the Pakistani Taliban confirmed the strike had killed more than a dozen of their members but said Fazlullah Khorasani, who was visiting the training camp at the time of the attack, had not himself been killed.
A spokesman of the NATO-led Resolute Support mission and US forces in Afghanistan headquarters in the capital, Kabul, did not confirm the report.
“We were not aware of this report and have no additional information to offer,” he said in an emailed statement.
