Sudan UN peace mission head assassinated in Islamabad

Suspected Taliban militants shot and killed a Pakistani army brigadier and his driver in the capital on Thursday as the military continued a major offensive against the insurgents in their strongholds near the Afghan border.

(photo AP)

Militants shot and killed Brigadier Moin-ud-din Ahmed, deputy force commander of the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), who was on vacation in Islamabad.

'Everyone in the mission is very shocked,' Kouider Zerrouk, UNMIS spokesman told Reuters. UNMIS, one of the world's largest UN peacekeeping missions with around 11,000 personnel, was set up to monitor and support the 2005 peace deal than ended the two-decade civil war between Sudan's north and south.