Fazlullah also referred to as ‘Mullah Radio’ — a Pakistani Taliban leader and the man who shot Malala Yousafzai has was killed in a US drone strike, a US military official confirmed to US government-funded media outlet Voice of America (VOA) on Friday. The US military official on the condition of anonymity said that the strike which was conducted on late Wednesday targetted Fazlullah (TTP). “US forces conducted a counterterrorism strike on June 13 in Kunar province, close to the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which targeted a senior leader of a designated terrorist organization,” a spokesman for US Forces-Afghanistan, Army Lt. Col. Martin O’Donnell, also told VOA on Thursday, without specifying that Fazlullah was the target.
Here’s everything you need to know about the chief of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan:
1. Fazlullah was born Fazal Hayat in Swat, Pakistan media outlet The Express Tribune said. He went to the Islamic religious school and for some time worked as a chairlift operator and sold firewood, He then joined his father-in-law’s Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), or Movement for the Enforcement of the Sharia of Mohammad. Fazlullah reportedly had a reward of $5 million on him since March this year — the same month a US drone strike had killed his son Abdullah on a training facility of TTP.
2. Fazlullah was the one who stopped the school bus Malala was in, asked her name and then shot her in the head. Malala, 15-years-old then, was an advocate for girls right to education. She survived and went on to win the Nobel Peace prize in 2014.
3. A tweet by Michael Kugelman, who is a senior associate at Washington DC think tank — The Wilson Centre read: “Fazlullah has been dead and then not dead so many times before. Healthy skepticism is in order”. So, this isn’t the first time that the killing of the terrorist has been reported. Reports have claimed his death at least four times since 2010 and thus, raises suspicion. It is also unknown if his death would have any impact on the TTP.
4. His long and fiery sermons which started in 2006 on a radio station in the picturesque Swat valley of Pakistan, also Malala’s hometown, earned him the name of ‘Mullah Radio’, or ‘Radio Mullah, or ‘Maulana Radio’. His sermons had a tremendous impact on women of the valley who asked their husbands to join Jihad and sold their jewelry.
5. According to the Tribune, he made scathing attacks on the Pakistani Military by beheading 17 soldiers after an attack in June 2012. He was also behind the attack on the Army Public School in the December 2014 in Peshawar that killed 151 people, including more than 130 children. He was appointed the TTP’s leader in 2013.
6. He controlled the Swat Valley from 2007-2009. He killed all those he thought conducted un-Islamic practices like- barbers, dancing girls and girls weren’t allowed to go to school.
7. One of his cousins told The Telegraph in 2014, “Many of our family members went to convince him but he did not listen to anyone. He was so blinded by his passion for Islam as he saw it that he even killed two of our uncles in 2007.” He is said to be an avid cricket fan, but this changed after he met Sufi Mohammad, a radical cleric and attended his madrassa.
