Peshawar, Pakistan — The Pakistani Taliban announced it had appointed a new leader on Saturday after the militant group confirmed for the first time its former chief Maulana Fazlullah was killed in a US drone strike last week.

Fazlullah is believed to have ordered the failed 2012 assassination of Malala Yousafzai, who became a global symbol of the fight for girls’ rights to schooling, and who later won the Nobel Peace Prize.

His group — Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) —was also behind the massacre of more than 150 people, including more than 100 schoolchildren, at a Peshawar school in December 2014.

US forces targeted Fazlullah in a counterterrorism strike on June 14 in Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province, close to the border with Pakistan.

US officials had not confirmed whether the strike was successful but Afghan President Ashraf Ghani later confirmed the killing to Pakistan’s leader and army chief in phone calls.

In a statement sent to AFP on Saturday TTP spokesman Mohammad Khurasani confirmed Fazlullah was killed in the US drone strike.

“It is a matter of pride that all leaders of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan have been martyred by infidels,” Khurasani said, referring to Fazlullah’s two predecessors who were also killed in drone strikes.

The group’s shoura council elected Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud to replace him, he added.

Pakistan has long been accused of supporting the Afghan Taliban and providing safe haven to its leaders — charges Islamabad denies. Pakistan, in return, has accused Afghanistan of sheltering the Pakistani Taliban.

Pakistan’s has army called Fazlullah’s apparent death a “positive development”.

The militant leader went into hiding in Afghanistan in 2009 and his death “gives relief to scores of Pakistani families who fell victims to TTP terror including the (school) massacre.

In another development, six militants and two soldiers were killed on Saturday during a fierce gunfight in a northwestern Pakistani tribal district bordering Afghanistan, military and local security officials said.

The clash took place in South Waziristan’s Spina Mela village after security forces were tipped off about the presence of militants who had entered the area pretending to be returning displaced locals, a military statement said.

Six militants and two soldiers were killed in the fighting, including a most wanted militant called Nanakar, the statement added.

Nanakar, who goes by one name, was wanted for several murders of local elders and tribesmen.

The troops also seized weapons, ammunition and devices through which militants were in communication with handlers across the border in Afghanistan, the military said.

Two local security officials in Miranshah, the main town of neighboring North Waziristan, confirmed the clash and casualties.

The US has repeatedly accused Pakistan of allowing the tribal areas to harbor militants fighting in Afghanistan — an allegation Islamabad has consistently denied. — AFP