Taliban commander dead
Mullah Dadullah gave an interview to al-Jazeera news channel last month
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Sunday, 13, May 2007 08:16
The Taliban's senior military commander has been killed in Afghanistan after clashes between insurgents and Nato troops.
Mullah Dadullah's body was shown to journalists earlier today at the office of the governor of Kandahar, the southern province which borders Helmand where the Taliban lieutenant was killed.
Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) has now also confirmed that Dadullah, second in authority only to overall Taliban leader Mullah Omar in the insurgency, has been killed.
"[He] will most certainly be replaced in time but the insurgency has received a serious blow," an Isaf statement said.
The Associated Press (AP) news agency said there were two bullet wounds in the military commander's stomach and one at the back of his head.
Dadullah, who lost his leg fighting Soviet occupying forces in the 1980s, had been a major thorn in the security efforts of Nato and the Afghanistan government since the Taliban was ousted by a US-led coalition post-September 11th 2001.
In the past he was dubbed the Afghan version of al-Qaida's leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, killed in a US strike last year.
And according to AP, it was US troops that led the targeted strike against Dadullah today, with Nato supporting the action.
Kandahar governor Asadullah Khalid said Dadullah was a "brutal and cruel commander" who beheaded Afghan civilians.
Unlike his other Taliban commanders, Dadullah embraced modern media outlets, frequently featuring in propaganda videos as well as giving an interview to Arabic language news channel al-Jazeera and reportedly phoning news agency journalists directly to inform them of future military operations.