Posted on 09/16/2003 4:50:48 AM PDT by PatrioticCowboy
U.S. army says 15 Taliban killed By Saeed Ali Achakzai
SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - At least 15 Taliban fighters have been killed by U.S. and allied warplanes in southern Afghanistan, the U.S. military and an Afghan official say.
The Afghan official said the dead included Mullah Abdur Rahim, a senior Taliban commander who controls the hardline militia's forces in southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban has been most active in carrying out attacks in recent months.
But a former intelligence official from the ousted regime dismissed reports of Rahim's death as propaganda.
The U.S. military, which launched an anti-Taliban campaign called Operation Mountain Viper in late August, said 15 Taliban fighters had been killed by U.S. and allied aircraft in the past 24 hours.
"Coalition ground forces in cooperation with Afghan militia coordinated an engagement of anti-coalition forces in Kandahar province with coalition aircraft operating in support of Operation Mountain Viper," the military added in a statement issued from its headquarters at Bagram air base north of Kabul.
Last week the U.S. military said it had killed up to 124 Taliban fighters since Operation Mountain Viper began, with most of the fighting centred around the Dai Chopan district of Zabul province, which borders Kandahar.
"Fifteen Taliban were killed, including Mullah Abdur Rahim, in Maruf district," Afghan Foreign Ministry official Khalid Khan Achakzai told Reuters, speaking in the town of Spin Boldak in southern Kandahar, near the Pakistan frontier. Mullah Abdul Samad, an intelligence officer in the radical Taliban regime, denied the death of Rahim.
"There have been deaths on both sides but it is wrong that Abdur Rahim has been killed. It is mere propaganda," he said.
Rahim was wounded earlier this year in a clash with Afghan forces in Spin Boldak, and a deputy was appointed to assist him by the fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
There are about 12,500 troops in the U.S.-led force hunting remnants of the Taliban and the al Qaeda network it sheltered.
Violence has plagued Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban. In just over a month, more than 200 people have been killed, including Taliban guerrillas, soldiers and police, civilians and aid workers.
Reuters
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