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Top Taliban leader killed in U.S. air strike

KABUL: A top Taliban military commander described as a close associate of Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar was killed in an air strike this week close to the border with Pakistan, the U.S. military said on Saturday. A Taliban spokesman denied the claim.

Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani was killed on Tuesday by a U.S. air strike while travelling by vehicle in a deserted area in the southern province of Helmand, the U.S. military said. Two associates also were killed, it said.

There was no immediate confirmation from Afghan officials or visual proof offered to support the claim. A U.S. spokesman said ``various sources'' were used to confirm Osmani's identity.

Osmani, regarded as one of three top associates of Omar, is the highest-ranking Taliban leader the coalition has claimed to have killed or captured since U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan to oust the Taliban regime in late 2001 for hosting Osama.

Big loss for militia

U.S. military spokesman Col. Tom Collins described Osmani's death as a ``big loss'' for the ultraconservative militia.

``There's no doubt that it will have an immediate impact on their ability to conduct attacks,'' Col. Collins said.

``But the Taliban is fairly adaptive. They'll put somebody else in that position and we'll go after that person, too.'' A purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, denied that Osmani had been killed, saying the air strike instead killed Mullah Abdul Zahir, a group commander, and three other Taliban fighters.

``I confirm that Osmani is alive and is in Afghanistan,'' Ahmadi said by phone from an undisclosed location.

Col. Collins said officials waited four days to announce the news in part so that they could be sure it was Osmani who was killed. — AP

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