The Pentagon Tuesday rejected claims made by the family of a man killed alongside Taliban Leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour, that the second occupant of the car was an innocent taxi driver, with no connection to the Taliban.
Mansour died in a U.S. drone strike May 20, as he was riding in a vehicle in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province near the Afghan border.
The other person in the car has been identified by his brother as Muhammad Azam, a Pakistani citizen. The brother says Azam was a regular taxi driver of the Iran to Quetta route, according to a police report cited by the Reuters news agency.
“As we said at the time, there was a deliberate determination made that the person in the vehicle with Mansour was a combatant,” said Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman.
Davis says no information has come to the attention of the Pentagon that would change its assessment that Azam was a “legitimate combatant.”
