US Drone (file)

ISLAMABAD, July 24 (Xinhua) — A Pakistani militant leader, Mangal Bagh, has been killed in a U.S. drone strike in eastern Afghanistan, section of the Pakistani media reported on Sunday.

Bagh, who heads “Lashkar-e-Islam” group in Pakistan’s Khyber tribal region, was wanted for his involvement in attacks on the security forces and tribal elders.

The government had also announced 20 million rupees bounty on the head of the militant leader.

Bagh had fled to neighboring Afghanistan and had been operating from there, according to security officials.

Pakistan leading private Geo television reported that a U.S. drone targeted Mangal Bagh in Nagarhar’s Khoi Khula area, bordering Pakistan.

The TV quoted unnamed intelligence and Taliban sources as confirming the drone strike on July 22 that eliminated the militant leader. Bagh’s Lashkar-e-Islami has not confirmed the incident.

Reports suggest that the United States has stepped up drone strikes in Afghanistan after President Barrack Obama approved in June aerial strikes against the Taliban.

According to media reports, U.S. and Pakistani officials said last week that an airstrike in Nangarhar killed Umar Mansour, the mastermind of the terrorist attack on a Pakistan military-run school in 2014 that killed nearly 140 people, mostly students, in December 2014.