Unnamed US officials booked for drone strike in Pakistan

QUETTA: Pakistani officials on Sunday registered a case against unnamed US officials for the drone attack that killed fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mansour and a taxi driver earlier this month.

The FIR, a copy of which is available with Geo News, was lodged at Levies Police Station in Mal Noshki in Balochistan, some 30 kilometer from the site of the drone attack on behalf of Muhammad Qasim, a brother of Muhammad Azam, who was driving the militant commander in his taxi and perished in the missile attack.

The complainant sought legal action against US officials, who he said, claimed responsibility for the attack through media.

The FIR has been lodged on different counts including, murder, terrorism and acts that deal with explosives.

Muhammad Qasim complained that he was informed on May 21 at 3:00 pm that the vehicle was blown up in an explosion that killed his brother and passenger identified as Wali Muhammad.

The May 21 strike targeting Mansour was perhaps the most high-profile US incursion into Pakistan since the 2011 raid to kill Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, sparking a protest by Islamabad that its sovereignty had been violated.

On Wednesday, the Afghan Taliban confirmed Mansour’s death in the US drone strike, and named one of the slain Taliban leader's deputies to succeed him as chief of the militant group.

A statement said that Maulvi Hibatullah Akhundzada was unanimously voted by the Taliban leadership.to be appointed as the successor of Mullah Mansour.

"Hibatullah Akhundzada has been appointed as the new leader of the Islamic Emirate (Taliban) after a unanimous agreement in the shura (supreme council), and all the members of the shura pledged allegiance to him," the Taliban said in the statement.

Akhunzada, believed to be around 60 years of age and a member of the powerful Noorzai tribe, was a close aide to the Taliban's founding leader Mullah Omar and is from Kandahar, in the south of Afghanistan and the heartland of the militant movement.

The statement added that Sirajuddin Haqqani and Mullah Omar’s son Mullah Yaqoob have been appointed deputy supreme leaders of the Afghan Taliban.

Pakistan officially confirmed Mansour's killing on Thursday.

"According to the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Mansour was traveling under a fake identity," said Sartaj Aziz, the Pakistani Prime Minister's Adviser on Foreign Affairs.

"It has been confirmed that it was Mullah Mansour who was killed in the drone strike. We are still waiting for DNA test results of the body, and the body will not be given to anyone until the DNA results are received."

Pakistan said that Mansour's killing had proven to be a setback for talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government, and for peace in the region as a whole. "Drone strikes have added to the complexity of the Afghan conflict,” said.

Aziz said that Pakistan had protested over the attack to the US, and that it was also raising the issue in the United Nations. "Drone attacks are an attack on Pakistan's sovereignty," he sai