Senior al-Qaeda commander killed in Pakistan

Sarfraz Bugti, the home minister for the southwestern province of Baluchistan, said on Sunday that the militant, identified as Umar Lateef, was killed during an overnight attack in the Chaghi district.
 
“An important Al-Qaeda commander – namely Umar Lateef, a Pakistani national – was killed in an encounter with local security agencies,” he told reporters.
 
Security forces also detained Lateef’s wife Tayyaba, aka Fareeha Baji, and their two little daughters.
 
Bugti said they had moved from the Afghan border province of Nimruz and lived between 8 and 10 months in Chaghi, adding that the slain militant was “a senior commander of al-Qaeda for Pakistan’s Balochistan and south Punjab regions.”
 
The official added that Lateef’s brother, who had been with them, managed to escape “probably to neighboring Afghanistan.”
 
A reward of two million rupees (USD 20,000) had reportedly been offered for Lateef and half a million rupees for his wife, who is the head of al-Qaeda’s women’s wing in south Punjab and Balochistan.
 
The Pakistani army started an operation against pro-Taliban and al-Qaeda-affiliated militants in the northwestern tribal regions of Pakistan in June last year after a deadly raid on the Karachi International Airport ended the government’s faltering peace talks with the pro-Taliban militants.
 
Islamabad intensified its anti-terror campaign after a December 16, 2014 attack on an army-run school in the city of Peshawar, which left some 150 people dead.
 
Violence has been increasing in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal belt following the 2001 US-led invasion of neighboring Afghanistan.