US drone strike in Pakistan kills driver, passenger, not Mullah Mansoor - Pakistani media

Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, Taliban militants' leader, is seen in this undated handout photograph by the Taliban. [Photo/Agencies]

ISLAMABAD - The US drone strike launched in Pakistan on Saturday afternoon (Pakistan time) has killed a taxi driver and a passenger, but not Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mansoor, reported local Urdu TV channel Samaa on Sunday.

The report said that the bodies of the two killed have been brought to a hospital in Nushki, a district close to Ahmad Wal, a small town in Pakistan's southwest province of Balochistan along the Pak-Afghan border, where the US drones launched a strike on Saturday, which reportedly killed the Taliban leader Mullah Mansoor.

Taliban leader Mansoor likely killed by US airstrike

WASHINGTON - Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansoor was likely killed in a US airstrike on Saturday "in a remote area of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region", TV networks reported.

The Pentagon confirmed the airstrike in a statement, noting that the US military was still assessing the results of the strike taking place around 6 am Eastern time.

Mansoor was likely dead in the strike which had been authorized by US President Barack Obama, a US official told CBS News on condition of anonymity.

The strike, carried out by multiple drones operated by the US Special Operations Forces, targeted a vehicle carrying Mansoor and another male passenger, also believed to be likely killed, in the southwest of Ahmad Wal, a town in western Pakistan, the official was quoted as saying.

Mansoor has been "actively involved with planning attacks against facilities in Kabul and across Afghanistan... and prohibiting Taliban leaders from participating in peace talks with the Afghan government that could lead to an end to the conflict." said Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook in the statement.

Mansoor had been an aide to Taliban's iconic longtime leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and a Taliban transportation minister.

He emerged as the Taliban leader in 2015 following the news broke that Omar had died in 2013.