The U.S.-led coalition said Friday it had launched an air strike on a meeting of top Taliban commanders in a militant stronghold in Afghanistan, and local officials said more than a dozen rebels and civilians had been killed.
The coalition issued a brief statement on the strike Thursday in a remote area of Baghran district in southern Helmand province, saying it targeted two Taliban commanders. It gave few other details and no word of casualties.
Afghan Defence Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi said the strikes killed three senior Taliban, including the commander for Helmand province, Mullah Rahim. About one dozen other militants were killed, he said.
Awaiting the severed head as confirmation ... | Purported Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi denied AzimiÂ’s claim that Mullah Rahim was killed in the air strike. An even higher-ranked leader, Dadullah Mansoor, commander of the Taliban for all of southern Afghanistan, was present at the meeting hit by the strike, but his fate was not known, Azimi said.
Shrapnel wound to the gut? Blast injury? May I go so far as to pray for sepsis? |
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