Senior Taliban commanders targeted

In a Thursday press release, CentCom referred to an attack on "two notorious Taliban commanders."

Coalition forces conducted a precision air strike against two notorious Taliban commanders conducting a leadership meeting in a remote area of the Baghran district, Helmand province today.

Coalition forces gained actionable intelligence on the location of two Helmand-area Taliban commanders and monitored their movements near the village of Qaleh Chah. During a sizable meeting of senior Taliban commanders, Coalition forces employed precision guided munitions on their location after ensuring there were no innocent Afghans in the surrounding area.

Also,



The very latest report is that one of them may have been Mansoor Dadullah, the Taliban's commander for southern Afghanistan.

Nato is reported to have killed at least two senior Taliban leaders in an airstrike north of Helmand as they were watching a public execution.

The bombing took place in the northern district of Baghran on Thursday, a district entirely controlled by the Taliban.

The Taliban's commander for southern Afghanistan, Mansoor Dadullah, was among those targeted, according to unconfirmed reports.

The Afghan Defence Ministry said that the airstrike took place as Taliban leaders gathered to watch the public hanging of several alleged government spies.

Dadullah replaced his older brother Mullah Dadullah Akhund after he was killed by the Special Boat Service (SBS) in Helmand on May 17th.

The Afghan defence ministry claimed that intelligence reports indicated the presence of Mansoor Dadullah at the targeted meeting. The senior Taliban commander for Helmand, Mullah Rahim, was also reported killed.

According to figures collated by Western diplomats in Kabul, around 45 middle and high level Taliban commanders in Helmand have been killed to date.

The Baghran district constitutes the northern end of Helmand Province. (See map.) It borders on the Musa Qala district, where the Taliban are strong. Just to the south of here is where the river operations I've been describing are taking place.

This would be tremendous intelligence work if they did get Mansoor Dadullah and Mullah Rahim.

About a week ago, Waliullah Rahmani wrote about Dadullah at the Jamestown Foundation:

Mansoor Dadullah, the half-brother of Mullah Dadullah, comes from the Arghandab district of Kandahar province and belongs to the Kakar tribe—a tribe from which many Taliban commanders and soldiers originated. He is approximately 30 years-old and has spent considerable time in prison.

Although Mansoor claimed that he would continue his brother's battlefield tactics—such as suicide bombings and executions—some analysts do not believe that he has the same ruthless capabilities as his brother. Waheed Mujda, a former member of Hezb-e-Islami who is well informed about the current Taliban movement, told The Jamestown Foundation on July 12 that "as far as I know him, Mansoor is not like his brother. Concerning tactics of beheadings and executions, Mansoor does not have the same ability as his brother even though he has been appointed to carry out these acts."

Yet, Mansoor Dadullah allegedly receives strong support from al-Qaeda. "With having Mullah Dadullah as the Taliban commander, al-Qaeda produced another al-Zarqawi in Afghanistan," said Mujda. "Al-Qaeda leaders think that Mansoor has his brother's qualities and therefore should be supported" in order for Mansoor to continue the successes of his brother in Afghanistan.

In this post, I had an excerpt from an interview with Dadullah available at the Counterterrorism Blog. This was the last question.

Q. An offensive on the part of NATO and the Afghan forces is underway in the south of the country. What is the nature of your resistance, with what means are you pursuing it, and what are your chances of not being defeated?

A. We are hopeful that we will win the war with Allah’s aid. We are convinced that NATO and the Americans will suffer a humiliating defeat.

Well, as the military is fond of saying, hope is not a strategy. Good riddance to a murderer.

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Others looking at this are The Jawa Report, Assaulting the Spire, Weasel Zippers, Point Rider Republican.

Riehl World View points out there was a very quick claim of numerous civilian casualties, though this was likely Taliban propaganda. In article linked to above there was this,

One military source, who did not wish to be named denied allegations of civilian casualties. "We are 100 per cent clear that this was entirely Taliban. Those in hospital are fighting age males. This is the Taliban trying to cover the fact that they got caught out."

In this article,

"It is interesting there were no females," said British Lieutenant-Colonel Charlie Mayo, suggesting the wounded adult males may have been Taliban fighters. "We are very confident we hit a large meeting of Taliban and they are very sore about it."

Also, Sharon Chadha has an excellent interview with Waliullah Rahmani, the analyst mentioned above.