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KABUL: NATO-led troops said Monday they had killed
several key Taliban leaders in a series of airstrikes and raids
targeting militants in southern Afghanistan during the past week.
The raids in the insurgency-hit
southern province of Helmand were part of a major NATO-led
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) offensive launched by
some 5,000 Afghan and foreign troops early last month, it said.
“ISAF, in joint operations with Afghan forces, launched a series
of attacks and precision strikes against Taliban extremists in
Helmand this week resulting in the elimination of several key
extremist leaders,” it said in a statement.
It did not give any further
details on the identities or ranks of the Taliban leaders, nor of
the locations or dates of the attacks.
“Striking at the heart of the
problem and removing these key leaders has paid off,” the
statement quoted ISAF Commander for southern Afghanistan Major
General Ton van Loon as saying.
“We fully realize the influence
these Taliban extremist leaders have on the population of southern
Afghanistan, who have clearly told us they felt like they were
hostages in their own communities,” the general said.
Meanwhile gunmen shot dead a
school headmaster in the southeastern province of Khost as he
returned home late Sunday, police said, blaming “terrorists” for
the attack.
An Afghan soldier was also killed
and two were wounded in a gunfight with Taliban militants in
southwestern Ghazni province on Sunday night, provincial police
said.
The hardline Taliban regime was
ousted from power in 2001 by US-led forces but has since regrouped
to lead a bloody insurgency that has left nearly 1,000 people dead
this year alone.
Around 37,000 NATO-led troops and
a separate force of nearly 12,000 US-led coalition soldiers are in
Afghanistan to hunt down the rebels, who are trying to topple the
US-backed government in Kabul.
Separately the coalition said it
had captured eight Taliban insurgents early Monday.
Four with alleged ties to a
“known, high-ranking Taliban leader” were arrested in Helmand
while another four were seized for allegedly running a militant
“safe-house” in the Barmal district of Paktika province, it
said.
--AFP
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