Pakistani officials: Key Taliban leader likely killed in airstrike

By GottaLaff

A Pakistani helicopter gunship attacked, and most likely killed, a pretty big fish, Maulvi Faqir Mohammed, an al-Qaeda-linked commander of the Pakistani Taliban:

Pakistani officials said Saturday that a top Taliban leader was probably killed in an airstrike in the northwest, dealing another blow to a militant group that fighters say has been leaderless since January. [...]

Analysts said that Mohammed's death, coming amid stepped-up military operations and U.S. drone strikes, would help reduce the Pakistani Taliban to something more like the patchwork of local insurgencies that it was before it grew into a lethal umbrella group. Mohammed had been considered a candidate to lead the national organization.

"They're shellshocked," Aftab Sherpao, a former Pakistani interior minister, said of the Taliban. "Pakistan is on the front foot right now."

Good. Can we leave now?