Updated at: 1201 PST, Thursday, October 07, 2010
KABUL: NATO said Thursday that another Taliban leader had been killed in an air strike and ground operation in northern Afghanistan, along with seven of his associates.
The US-led force in Afghanistan named Maulawi Jawadullah as the Taliban leader of Yangi Qala district in Takhar province.
He was allegedly wanted in connection with the deaths of at least 10 Afghan police in an attack in the neighbouring province of Kunduz.
NATO said Jawadullah was "directly responsible" for kidnapping and holding hostage Afghan security personnel, and carried out bombings and ambushes.
NATO said an air strike targeted Jawadullah and a group of insurgents, killing five militants.
The military said that an Afghan and coalition ground force then killed three insurgents in hiding "after they threatened the security force".
NATO announced separately that Mullah Ismail, the Taliban shadow governor of Badghis province in the northwest and Abdul Hakim, a Taliban senior leader in the same province were killed during an operation on Wednesday.
The Taliban, the militia leading a nine-year insurgency aiming to bring down the Western-backed Afghan government and evict more than 152,000 foreign troops, operate "shadow" administrations in all the country's 34 provinces. |
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