A Pakistan army spokesman said Thursday that soldiers have captured or killed the majority of a 27-member local Taliban cell that orchestrated and carried out the December 16 massacre of 141 people, 132 of them children, at a school in Peshawar.
Maj Gen Asim Bajwa, director-general of the army’s public relation’s department, announced at a media briefing that 12 were arrested and nine killed in clashes with troops in tribal areas.
“Six militants, including Pakistani Taliban head Mullah Fazlullah, who is in Afghanistan, are still at large,” he said.
The attackers, all of them Pakistanis, were trained in border areas before being sent to Peshawar via Jamurd town, he said.
The spokesman said that one of the facilitators was an imam, who sheltered the militants in Peshawar for four days before the assault was launched. The imam was a government employee in the Irrigation Department.
The cell had also been involved in several others terrorism incidents in Peshawar and Rawalpindi, he added.
Maj Gen Bajwa also said Pakistani officials were receiving support from Afghan authorities in the hunt for Mullah Fazlullah.
The repatriation or death of Mullah Fazlullah is Pakistan’s number one demand, he said.
“This point is being raised in every meeting … he’s a recognized terrorist … we are optimistic and hopeful,” he said, adding that since the attack took place cooperation had grown between the two neighboring countries.
The spokesman said 226 troops and more than 2,000 terrorists have been killed in operations in tribal areas since June 2014.
He said most parts of North Waziristan and Khyber Agency have been cleared except a couple of small pockets along the Afghan border.
More than a million people were displaced after the Pakistan military launched the offensive in North Waziristan in June last year.
Maj Gen Bajwa said resettlement of the displaced would begin in March.
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