Commander Killed In Attack

A Taliban commander, that is.

Jack Straw wants to know why we're learning of this from the Times of India, rather than the American MSM.

(I think that might be a rhetorical question on his part.)

A Taliban commander was among 16 people killed in Afghanistan, as Afghan and NATO forces surrounded around 200 Taliban fighters in southern Uruzgan province, officials said on Tuesday.

Eleven Taliban were killed when Afghan and NATO forces attacked their hideout in the Seuri district of southern Zabul province Monday night, General Rahmatullah Raoufi, army commander for regional south said.

He said joint forces acting on a tip-off surrounded the Taliban compound and asked them to surrender, adding that the joint forces opened fire after being fired on by the insurgents from inside the compound. The ensuing battle left eleven Taliban dead. None of the Afghan or NATO troops was wounded.

...

Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said the militants came under siege when they gathered for a meeting in the Chora district of the province and were warned to surrender or face attack.

He said the surrounded militants included some top Taliban commanders, but did not name any. However, Deputy Interior Minister Abdul Hadi Khalid told the security commission of the upper house of parliament Monday that it was possible that Mullah Dadullah, the top rebel commander for the southern region, could be among the fighters under siege.

Dadullah is believed to have been responsible for the recent beheading of an Afghan journalist and his driver.

The Taliban rejected the claim that their fighters, including Mullah Dadullah, are surrounded by Afghan forces, saying there was no need for such a large number of their fighters to gather in one place.

Note the "commander" killed is apparently not Dadullah, or at least there's no positive indication it's him.

Correction: The first sentence's linkage of the 200 surrounded Taliban and this attack made me believe they were in fact related -- which they appear not to be. Sorry for passing that erroroneous reading on to you.

Thanks to Allah for noting that.

posted by Ace at 06:25 PM

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