Taliban Kills Anti-Terror Minister in Pakistan

The Taliban has killed a provincial minister in Pakistan who took a strong stance against the terrorist group.

The Associated Press reports that Shuja Khanzada, the provincial head of Punjab's anti-terror operations, has been killed in two blasts carried out by suicide bombers. An additional 13 people were killed in the explosions and 17 people were injured, with four sustaining critical injuries.

The bombers were not in the building with the minister, but seemed to have been planned to maximize structural damage to the building, causing it to collapse. One bomber was at the entrance to a hall leading to the minister while the other detonated his device in an alley directly behind where the minister would have been.

The New York Times reports that the building in question was actually 72-year-old Khanzada's home, and he was holding a political meeting at the time.

The AP says that images on Pakistani television showed cranes and emergency responders working to lift up large pieces of concrete and other debris in a search for bodies and survivors.

The Times reports these rescue efforts have been somewhat hampered by the lack of the necessary heavy equipment.

Besides speaking out publicly and forcefully against the Taliban, along with other terror groups that have a large presence in Punjab province, Khanzada was the force behind special anti-terror operations in an effort to battle the groups, parlaying his experience as a former army colonel into his administrative role. He also supported the government's re-institution of the death penalty for terrorism cases.

The penalty had been suspended, but after a vicious assault on a school for the children of military members in Peshawar in 2014, which killed nearly 150 people, the majority of which were children.