Posted on 05/16/2007 4:51:11 PM PDT by Dog
KABUL: Three Taliban who had been released from prison in exchange for a kidnapped Italian journalist were killed alongside the insurgency’s top field commander over the weekend, the Afghan intelligence service said on Wednesday.
Mullah Dadullah, a militant who orchestrated a rash of Taliban suicide attacks and beheadings, died of gunshot wounds in a US-led operation over the weekend in the southern province of Helmand.
An official with Afghanistan’s intelligence service identified the three others as Mullah Shah Mansoor, Dadullah’s brother, Mullah Hamdullah and Commander Ghafar. They had been freed in March in a prisoner swap for the release of Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo.
US-led coalition forces, with assistance from NATO and Afghan forces, were able to track them to the village of Sarwan using “modern technology,” said the official, reading an intelligence service statement. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the agency’s policy.
A NATO spokeswoman said the coalition would not have been able to kill the Taliban’s top field commander without the help of Afghan civilians and security forces, whose intelligence helped track him down, but gave no details.
The Taliban has lost most of its top commanders over the last year and NATO’s International Security Assistance Force anticipates the Taliban’s operational coherence and morale will suffer as a result, spokeswoman Lt Col Maria Carl said.
Afghan national security forces “made this operation possible, and their efforts are largely responsible for the death of (Mullah Dadullah) - this is their success,” Carl told a news conference. Carl said NATO forces tracked Dadullah to southern Afghanistan. “Not long after Mullah Dadullah showed up in the southern part of Afghanistan, he was found and killed in an assault by mainly coalition forces, with ISAF and (Afghan) assets in support,” Carl said.
“This will likely be a serious disruption to the extremists’ efforts to terrorize the Afghan people. But we also know that it does not mean the end of the insurgency by any means,” Carl said.
Afghan Defence Ministry spokesman Gen Zahir Azimi said the Afghan people had a “great role in cooperating with the government” in the operation to kill Dadullah, but he declined to give any further details. He said the government was “keeping their intelligence information secret”.
Separately, a soldier with the US-led coalition died from his injuries after being attacked while returning from a medical assistance mission in southern Afghanistan, the force said on Wednesday. agencies
Who released them? The Afghans, after a big bribe?
Shhhhhhhh..
Or the bastards will figure out that while prisoners we jammed satellite trackable chips in ALL prisoner’s asses before they are “released”..
Catch and release is really catch and track.....
KNOWING they will lead us to a target...
The ONLY way the enemy cells and leaders can negate the risk of their discovery and death - is to immediately kill all repatriated prisoners before they can do any damage.
A real win/win scenario, huh?
“Good idea...they must have knocked ‘em out and planted tracking devices in the Taliban prisoners before they were released. Works every time.”
Good stuff, hopefully none of them will sleep at night.
I hope Ron Paul wasn’t to upset.
Actually my sources say that the tracking device is inserted in their nuts. The only way to save themselves is to make the goats unhappy.
Must’ve been those RFID chips or GPS transmitters we inserted in their butts.... good show!!
Hell, that works for me...
Anything that kills these assholes in large numbers is good for the planet....
‘Morning, Dog. Re #10— I remember that. It was delivered with resolve...
Re#17 Looks like it. Hopefully they don’t make the connection...
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