Gunmen yesterday killed a senior  Taliban commander who helped train and deploy the group’s suicide bombers, and suspected US drone missile strikes killed 20 suspected militants elsewhere in the northwest, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

Shakirullah Shakir was riding on a motorcycle near Miran Shah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal area, when gunmen riding in a car with tinted windows shot him, the officials said.

Shakir was a senior commander and spokesman for the Fidayeen-e-Islam wing of the Taliban. He once claimed to a local newspaper that his group had trained more than 1,000 suicide bombers at camps in North Waziristan.

No group has claimed responsibility for his killing.