And here’s some GREAT news:
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/02/former_taliban_comma.php
“Former Taliban commander Mansoor Dadullah captured in Pakistan”
By BILL ROGGIOFebruary 11, 2008 9:24 AM
ARTICLE SNIPPET: “Mullah Mansoor Dadullah, a senior Taliban figure, has been wounded and captured along with five lieutenants by Pakistan’s Frontier Corps, the Pakistani military reported. There are two conflicting reports of Mansoor’s capture. The official military line is Mansoor was captured while crossing from Afghanistan into Pakistan, while anonymous sources claimed he was captured in a religious seminary in Baluchistan.
Mansoor was reported to have been wounded during a firefight as he attempted to enter Baluchistan province in Pakistan from Kandahar province, Afghanistan, according to Pakistan’s Inter Service Public Relations. Mansoor and his party refused to stop when challenge and a firefight ensued. “Security personnel returned fire. As a result all of them sustained injuries and all of them were captured,” Major General Athar Abbas, the military spokesman said. “Dadullah was arrested alive but he is critically wounded.”
But unnamed intelligence sources told The Associated Press that Mansoor and his party were captured after police, Army, and anti-terrorism commandos of the Special Services Groups surrounded a religious seminary in the Zhob district of Baluchistan. Mansoor was captured along with associates Haji Lala, Khudai Dad, Khalid Dad, and Abdur Razzak, according to the intelligence source.
The Zhob district appears to be a Taliban staging area.”
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=48931
“Al Qaeda Fighters Flee Cities, Head for Desert or Out of Iraq”
By Fred W. Baker III
American Forces Press Service
PRESS RELEASE SNIPPET: “WASHINGTON, Feb. 11, 2008 – A surge in military operations and a shift in local support in northern Iraq has driven many al Qaeda fighters out of cities that once provided them safe haven and into the desert, or even out of the country, a commander in the region said today.
Some foreign fighters are returning to their home countries of Syria and Saudi Arabia, he said, taking with them funds earmarked for fighters in Iraq. Some are trying to reorganize outside the country’s borders, but Hertling’s troops are watching the border and have arrested some as they try to return, he said.
Others, who no longer feel safe in the cities because they are afraid that local citizens will turn them in, are hiding out in abandoned mud huts, canals or caves in the desert.
“That’s their biggest fear. So many of them are going to the desert regions to just get away from being ratted out by the citizens by being pointed out and captured,” Hertling said.
But, even their desert hideaways are targets under six-week-long Operation Iron Harvest, part of the countrywide Operation Phantom Phoenix.
“Some of them are saying it’s not even safe in the desert because the night raids are coming to get them,” Hertling said. “And that’s a good thing. We want them to keep thinking that they can’t sleep well at night because we’re coming after them, because, quite frankly, we are.”
Hertling could not give specific numbers on how many fighters have left or an estimate of the size of the enemy force remains in the region, but he said fewer al Qaeda fighters are in the province now than six weeks ago.
“We’re doing exactly what we’re trying to do, and that is make the cities safer for the Iraqi citizens while continuing to target al Qaeda and the other extremist groups,” the commander said.”