Posted on 10/17/2006 5:35:05 AM PDT by Aussie Dasher
NATO says US warplanes have killed a senior Taliban commander in an air strike in the violence-racked southern province of Uruzgan.
It says three bombs killed him and 10 to 15 other Taliban militants.
NATO says the dead were involved in ambushes of Afghan soldiers and troops from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
Mountainous Uruzgan is a stronghold of the Taliban, ousted by US-led forces in 2001, and next to Kandahar province, the birthplace of the hardline Islamist group.
The Taliban have regrouped since their ouster and this has been the bloodiest year since 2001, with more than 3,000 people, including about 150 foreign soldiers, killed in fighting across the country.
Hostage makes contact
The PeaceReporter website meanwhile says an Italian photojournalist kidnapped in Helmand province, south of Uruzgan, has made contact with an Italian-run hospital.
It says London-based Gabriele Torsello, a Muslim, has told the hospital's security chief he is fine and that his abductors are moving him around.
Mr Torsello was kidnapped by five gunmen last week from a public bus on the way from Lashkar Gah, Helmand's capital, to Kandahar.
PeaceReporter has quoted a hospital worker saying Mr Torsello had been arrested by police near the Helmand governor's office on suspicion of being a Taliban guerrilla soon before he left for Kandahar.
Police say his kidnappers are Taliban, but the Islamist group has denied any involvement, blaming criminals instead.
Helmand and Kandahar are the two most dangerous provinces in Afghanistan and have seen the heaviest fighting between the Taliban and NATO forces and troops from the US-led coalition.
Troops leave district
Meantime, the NATO-led force says British troops have been pulling out of a previously Taliban-infested district in southern Afghanistan at the request of officials and tribal elders.
The move in the once-volatile district of Musa Qala in Helmand is a first for ISAF, which is battling Taliban extremists waging an intense insurgency.
Helmand province Governor Mohammad Daud says there has been no deal with the Taliban and rejects a reported statement by the rebel group that the Afghan flag would no longer fly in the district.
"The British military is pulling out of Musa Qala at the wish of Governor Daud and with the agreement of tribal elders," a spokesman for the NATO-led force said.
The move involves about 120 British soldiers.
Sniff sniff.
Paging any FReeper with the Nelson "HA-Ha!" pic...
Excellent news.
Careful, the DUmmies will accuse you of insensitivity to people who've never had a trial, and were only ACCUSED Taliban.
That's ok
I've been known to be insensitive.
Well, at least NATO forces didn't raid their location, take them captive and then cut their heads off with rusty dull swords; drag rheir headless corpses through the streets; then, hang the bodies and burn them..... it's just a Mooselimb thing, you know.
Wow! Three Bombs. They must be really dead.
That's as far as I could get before gagging. :)
Gotta make sure of these things... :-)
Yeah, that's all well and good, but the part about the british moving out is VERY DISTURBING. I hope the brits realize that there are no lasting deals you can make with these animals. TRUST BUT VERIFY.
please, please, careful now!!! Deceitful ROP bullsh$t can choke the living life of of even the strongest Americans. IMHO? One might as well sit down and drink a gallon of buzzard puke and eat a 5 lb tub of raw pig fat than try and swallow the hypocrosy of Islamic law and culture.
Islamobastards feeling the pain of Crusader bombs for a change?
Payback is a bitch.
Excuse me while i go outside and salute my flag!!
But, what do you REALLY think? Come on now, don't hold back!
Bwahahahaha!
15 fewer Taliban pukes walking the earth- it's gonna be a good day!
Ditto!!!
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