Pakistan's crackdown on terror intensifies

Pakistani security forces have killed a Taliban commander who allegedly facilitated the Peshawar school massacre, which left 150 people dead in the country's worst ever terror attack, officials said yesterday.
Named only as "Saddam", the militant was killed Thursday night in a gunfight with security forces in the restive Khyber tribal area, which borders the northwestern city of Peshawar where last week's horrific attack took place.
"Commander Saddam was a dreaded terrorist, who was killed in an exchange of fire with the security forces in Jamrud town of Khyber tribal region," top local administration official Shahab Ali Shah told a press conference in Peshawar.
"Six of his accomplices were injured and arrested."
He added that Saddam is believed to have facilitated the school attack, although the extent or capacity of his alleged involvement was not yet known.
He described Saddam as an important commander in the Pakistani Taliban, or Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and said he had masterminded several bomb attacks.
Meanwhile, a US drone strike on a Taliban compound in North Waziristan killed at least 7 militants yesterday, officials said, the second such incident in a week. Another drone strike in North Waziristan on December 20 killed at least five militants, officials said.
The Pakistani military says it has killed more than 1,700 militants so far in its heavy offensive in the tribal zone, with 126 soldiers having lost their lives.
Pakistan has ramped up its anti-terror strategy in the wake of the December 16 slaughter at an army-run school in Peshawar, where 134 children were among the victims gunned down by heavily-armed Taliban militants.
Pakistan government will take nearly 7,000 suspects into custody for having links with banned militant outfits across the country, a media report said yesterday.
The interior ministry has issued orders to all four provinces and the Islamabad administration for taking into custody 6,777 suspects, majority of them from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The suspects are likely to be arrested during the next 24 hours for having links with and facilitating terrorists.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has announced the establishment of military courts for terror-related cases in order to accelerate trials, and he has also lifted a six-year moratorium on the death penalty, reinstating it for terrorism-related cases.
Officials said Monday that Pakistan plans to execute around 500 militants in the coming weeks.