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Top Taliban leader killed in U.S. military operation

Dadullah carried out ethnic massacres

KANDAHAR (Afghanistan): Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban's most prominent military commander, a one-legged fighter who orchestrated an ethnic massacre and a rash of beheadings, was killed in a U.S.-led military operation in southern Afghanistan, officials said on Sunday.

Dadullah, a top lieutenant of Taliban leader Mullah Omar, was killed on Saturday in the southern province of Helmand, said Said Ansari, the spokesman for Afghanistan's intelligence service. A NATO statement confirmed his death, saying it had dealt the insurgency ``a serious blow.''

Dadullah is one of the highest-ranking Taliban leaders killed since the fall of the hard-line regime following the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. His death represents a major victory for the Afghan Government and the international coalition that has struggled to contain a Taliban-led insurgency wracking the south and east of the country.

``Mullah Dadullah was the backbone of the Taliban,'' said Asadullah Khalid, Governor of the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar. ``He was a brutal and cruel commander who killed and beheaded Afghan civilians.''

Mr. Khalid showed Dadullah's body to reporters at a news conference in the Governor's compound. Rahimullah Yusufzai, an editor of the Pakistani newspaper The News and an expert on the Taliban, said Dadullah's death would be a huge blow to the militant group.

``I think this is the biggest loss for the Taliban in the last six years,'' Mr. Yusufzai said.

In December, a U.S. airstrike killed another top Taliban commander in southern Afghanistan, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani. Dadullah, Osmani and policy-maker Mullah Obaidullah had been considered Mullah Omar's top three lieutenants.

— AP

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