Jamaat-ul-Ahrar chief Khorasani, nine associates killed by US drone strike

The chief of the militant outfit Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, Umar Khalid Khorasani, and nine of his associates have been killed in a U.S. drone strike in Afghanistan's Paktia province.

The Dawn quoted a spokesman of the group, Asad Mansoor, as saying on Friday that "Chief of our Jamaat-ul-Ahrar Umar Khalid Khorasani, who sustained serious injuries in a recent U.S. drone strike in Afghanistan's Paktia province, succumbed to his injuries Wednesday evening."

The JuA spokesman was reportedly speaking by telephone from an undisclosed location, a foreign news agency said.

Mansoor said the JuA consultative council will be convened soon to appoint a new chief.

It is however also being reported that senior commander Asad Afridi has been appointed as the new JuA chief.

In the past three weeks, the United States has initiated about 70 drone strikes along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and killed over 30 people in the last few days.

The strikes came days after Canadian hostage Joshua Boyle and his American wife and three children were freed in Pakistan after five years of captivity at the hands of the Haqqani network.