Pak cops kill Laskhar-e- Jhangvi chief
The leader of an anti-Shia group behind some of Pakistan's worst sectarian atrocities was killed in a shootout with police early yesterday along with 13 other militants, authorities said.
Malik Ishaq was shot dead along with fellow Laskhar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) militants, including senior commanders, in the eastern province of Punjab.
LeJ, long seen as close to al-Qaeda and more recently accused of developing links with the Islamic State group, has a reputation as one of Pakistan's most ruthless militant groups.
The shootout appears to have wiped out much of the top leadership of LeJ, a driving force in a rising tide of violence targeting Shia Muslims, who make up around 20 percent of Pakistan's 200 million majority Sunni Muslim population.
As well as numerous sectarian atrocities, LeJ was also blamed for the 2009 attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in the eastern city of Lahore.
Ishaq, who had been in and out of police custody in recent years, was arrested on Saturday and was being moved when loyalists attacked the convoy in Muzaffargarh, a senior police official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
"The police retaliated and in the encounter Ishaq, his two sons and 11 others were killed, while six policemen were injured," he said.
Those killed reportedly included Ghulam Rasool Shah, a hardline LeJ chief who acted as the group's leader when Ishaq -- designated a global terrorist by the US State Department last year -- was behind bars.
Security analyst Amir Rana said Wednesday's killings would have a "major impact" on LeJ, effectively finishing the group as a force in Punjab.
An intelligence official told AFP that Ishaq and his cohorts had fallen foul of the powerful security establishment by refusing to curtail their terror activities.
Ishaq, born in southern Punjab in 1959, joined the sectarian organization Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan in the 1980s but left to form LeJ in 1996 and gained notoriety for his anti-Shia rhetoric.
He was accused of masterminding dozens of attacks against Shias.
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