Pakistani police kill feared militant leader in mysterious pre-dawn shootout
MUZAFFARGARH, Pakistan - Pakistani police gunned down one of the country's most-feared Sunni militant leaders and 13 followers in a mysterious pre-dawn shootout Wednesday, killing a man believed to behind the slaughter of hundreds of the nation's minority Shiites.
Malik Ishaq, who directed the operations of the Taliban- and al Qaeda-linked Lashkar-e-Jhangvi group, was so feared in Pakistan that frightened judges hid their faces from him and even offered the unrepentant killer tea and cookies in court.
Yet Ishaq, believed to be either 55 or 56, operated freely for years in Pakistan as the country's intelligence services helped nurture Sunni militant groups in the 1980s and 1990s to counter a perceived threat from neighbouring Shiite power Iran.
Details of Ishaq's killing remain cloudy in Pakistan, where extrajudicial slayings by police remain common - especially in pre-staged ambushes. Ishaq already had been detained by police, arrested two days earlier on suspicion of being involved in the slaying of two Shiites, police officer Bakhtiar Ahmed said.
http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/pakistani-police-kill-feared-militant-leader-in-mysterious-pre-dawn-shootout-1.2492430
