Islamabad: The mastermind behind the December 2014 massacre at Peshawar's Army Public School, has been killed in a US drone strike in Afghanistan, senior Pakistani security officials claimed. The officials told Dawn on Monday that Umar Mansour was killed, along with another militant leader Qari Saifullah, in the US drone attack in the Bandar area of Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province on Saturday.

One of the officials said they had credible reports of Mansour having been killed with Saifullah, who was in charge of suicide bombers. “What we have is pretty credible,” the official said. On May 25, the US State Department had declared Umar Mansour a global terrorist, thus clearing the path for his inclusion in the hit-list.