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Planner of Pakistan school massacre reported killed

The attack killed 149 people.

By Ed Adamczyk
Relatives of injured students react as they arrive at a hospital dealing with the victims of an attack by Taliban gunmen on a school in Peshawar, Pakistan on December 16, 2014. UPI/Sajjad Ali Queshi
Relatives of injured students react as they arrive at a hospital dealing with the victims of an attack by Taliban gunmen on a school in Peshawar, Pakistan on December 16, 2014. UPI/Sajjad Ali Queshi | License Photo

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Dec. 26 (UPI) -- A senior Taliban commander, believed to be involved in the Dec. 16 school massacre in Peshawar, Pakistan, that killed 149 people, has been killed, officials said Friday.

The man, identified only as Saddam, died Thursday in a gun battle with security forces in Pakistan's restive Khyber region.

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"Saddam had been killed in the Gundi area of Jamrud by the security forces in an operation yesterday," government official Shahab Ali Shah told a Peshawar press conference. He added six accomplices were injured and arrested.

He described Saddam as a high-ranking commander in the Pakistani Taliban who masterminded several recent attacks on security forces, but the extent of his alleged involvement as facilitator of the school attack has not yet been determined.

The Army Public School in Peshawar was attacked by a seven-man suicide squad, and the majority of those killed were children. The Taliban announced the attack was retaliation for recent Pakistani Army operations. Intercepted communications between two of the attackers during the seven-hour operation helped identify Saddam's involvement.

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