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NATO: Taliban commander among 10 killed in strike
KABUL (AP) - NATO killed a senior Taliban commander and nine other suspected militants in southern Afghanistan, while the coalition and its Afghan allies suffered an equal number of deaths in separate attacks in the same area, officials said Monday.Senior Taliban commander Maulawi Hassan and his associates were killed Saturday when troops attacked an isolated compound in the Kajaki area of southern Helmand province, NATO said in a statement, adding there were no civilians involved."Maulawi Hassan was a senior insurgent figure in northern Helmand, and his influence extended into western Oruzgan," the statement said. Southern Afghanistan is the center of the Taliban insurgency, which has made a comeback in the last three years following the group's initial defeat by U.S.-led forces in late 2001. Afghan and coalition forces have stepped up operations against militants in southern Afghanistan, and the U.S. plans to send thousands of additional soldiers there this year. On Monday, Afghan police and intelligence agents detained five Taliban militants in Oruzgan, including the group's senior commander for the province, Mullah Azizullah, said police officer Wali Jan. The militants were stopped in Arzo district while driving from the city of Quetta in neighboring Pakistan, Jan said. Well fancy that... Quetta is believed to be a safe-haven for many senior Taliban leaders, including the group's supreme leader, Mullah Omar, according to Afghan officials. Pakistan denies the claim and says Omar is in Afghanistan. Also Monday, Taliban fighters ambushed a police patrol in southern Kandahar province's Spin Boldak district, killing eight officers and wounding another, said Sahib Jan, a police officer. On Sunday, a rocket slammed into the main NATO military base in the south, killing a contractor and wounding six others. Kandahar airfield, the nerve center for the alliance's war effort in southern Afghanistan, has been hit by many rockets in the past but Sunday's death was the first in such an attack, another NATO statement said. Also Sunday, two NATO soldiers were killed in a "hostile incident" in the same region, a third NATO statement said, without releasing the soldiers' nationalities or the exact location of the attack. Posted by: tu3031 2009-03-23 |
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