Free Republic

QUETTA, Pakistan - Pakistani security forces critically wounded a top figure in the Taliban militia, among six militants captured after a firefight near the border Monday, the army said. Mansoor Dadullah, the brother of slain Taliban military commander Mullah Dadullah, and five others were challenged by security forces as they crossed from Afghanistan into Pakistan’s southwestern province of Baluchistan. They refused to stop and opened fire, said army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas. “Security personnel returned fire. As a result all of them sustained injuries and all of them were captured,” Abbas said. “Dadullah was arrested alive but he is...

Islamabad, 31 Jan. (AKI) - US secret service agents operating in the remote border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan claim to have found five letters signed by al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, Saudi daily Al-Watan said on Thursday. Citing unnamed local security sources, the newspaper said that the letters are allegedly handwritten in Arabic and bear Bin Laden's apparent signature and seal. They appear to have been sent last December to some of Bin Laden's followers in the region. One of the letters is addressed to the Taliban leader in Afghanistan's volatile southern province of Helmand, Mansoor Dadallah. In the...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Pakistani security forces on Monday shot and wounded a well-known Taliban operative in southwestern Pakistan near the Afghan border, the military said. Mansoor Dadullah is the brother of slain Taliban leader Mullah Dadullah, killed last May in a military operation in southern Afghanistan. Dadullah and five others were seized near the Gaddal post in Qila Saifullah, a town in Baluchistan province in Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan, according to Lt. Col. Baseer Haider Malik.

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani security forces killed a top figure in the Taliban militia fighting U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan and captured four other militants Monday, a military official said. Mansoor Dadullah, brother of slain Taliban military commander Mullah Dadullah, was among five militants caught after a shootout near a seminary in southwestern Baluchistan province around 10 a.m., a local intelligence official told The Associated Press. A senior military official said Dadullah died of his wounds while being flown to a hospital with the other four injured men. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they...

Taliban in turmoil after argument over sacking By Tom Coghlan in Kabul Last Updated: 1:10am GMT 31/12/2007 The Taliban leadership are struggling to contain the fallout from an embarrassing public argument after a senior commander was sacked for disobeying orders but then refused to stand down. Taliban spokesmen traded accusations in phone calls to news organisations after Mullah Omar, the spiritual leader of the Islamist organisation, publicly sacked Mansoor Dadullah, the new overall ground commander fighting British forces in southern Afghanistan. Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman, said Dadullah was sacked for disobeying orders and conducting activities against the Taliban's rules and...

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A key Taliban commander in southern Afghanistan has been dismissed for disobeying the militant group's rules, a Taliban spokesman said Saturday. Mansoor Dadullah was "disobeying orders" and conducting activities "against the Taliban's rules and regulations," said Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid. He did not provide any details. "For this reason Mullah Mansoor Dadullah is no longer in the Taliban and no longer a Taliban commander," Mujahid said in a statement he attributed to Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Dadullah rose in the militia's ranks as a key commander in southern Afghanistan after his brother, Mullah Dadullah, was killed during...

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - U.S.-led airstrikes hit a Taliban gathering in volatile southern Afghanistan and killed at least three senior figures of the militant group, government officials said Friday. The ministry said its intelligence reports indicated three militant leaders, including Taliban commander for Helmand province Mullah Rahim, were among those killed Thursday. The Taliban commander for all of southern Afghanistan, Dadullah Mansoor, was at the scene but his fate was not immediately known, Azimi said. A purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, denied Rahim was killed. The U.S.-led coalition would not confirm Azimi's account. But a coalition statement said it carried...

KABUL, Aug. 4 (Xinhua) -- About 100 Taliban rebels including five senior commanders were killed during an air strike in southern Afghanistan, Defense Ministry spokesman Zahir Azimi told reporters Saturday. Foreign troops carried out an air strike in remote Baghran district of Helmand province on Thursday when many Taliban militants were gathering to watch the execution of several persons accused of cooperating with the government, Azimi said. About 100 insurgents were killed in the bombardment, he said, adding five senior Taliban commanders including Mullah Rahim, top Taliban commander in Helmand, were among the killed.Azimi said Mansor Dadullah, top Taliban military...

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, 4 August 2007 — An airstrike on a large Taleban gathering killed dozens of rebels, the Defense Ministry said yesterday, with at least 30 civilians wounded and unconfirmed reports of many more killed. The US-led coalition forces said they had conducted a “precision airstrike” against two notorious Taleban commanders meeting in the rebel-controlled and remote area of Baghran district in the southern province of Helmand. The Afghan Defense Ministry said the gathering was to execute four people on charges of cooperating with the government and had attracted several militant leaders including top Taleban military commander Mansour Dadullah. “In...

As senior intelligence and law enforcement officials met again today in the White House Situation Room to deal with the "summer terror threat," a top terror commander said an attack was coming that would dwarf the failed bombings in London and Glasgow. Taliban military commander Mansour Dadullah, in an interview to be broadcast on ABC News' "World News With Charles Gibson," said the London attacks were "not enough" and that bigger attacks were coming. "You will, God willing, be witness to more attacks," he told a Pakistani journalist in an interview conducted just four days ago. Just last month, Dadullah...

Large teams of newly trained suicide bombers are being sent to the United States and Europe, according to evidence contained on a new videotape obtained by the Blotter on ABCNews.com. Teams assigned to carry out attacks in the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Germany were introduced at an al Qaeda/Taliban training camp graduation ceremony held June 9. A Pakistani journalist was invited to attend and take pictures as some 300 recruits, including boys as young as 12, were supposedly sent off on their suicide missions. "These Americans, Canadians, British and Germans come here to Afghanistan from faraway places," Dadullah...

THE Taliban has swapped three hostages and a beheaded doctor for the body of its top commander killed by troops in Afghanistan last month. The extremist group said on Tuesday that it had beheaded the doctor, captured late March with three nurses and a driver, because it had not been given the body of Mullah Dadullah. "We received the body of Mullah Dadullah last night from the Kandahar government," spokesman Shahabudin Atal said. "We have released the three nurses and a driver and very soon they will be home," said Atal, spokesman for Dadullah's brother Mansoor, who has taken over...

KABUL (Reuters) - The Taliban will stage a "massive" operation against Western troops in Afghanistan and civilians must stay away from them in order to avoid casualties, a spokesman for the group said on Sunday. After the traditional winter lull, followed by last year's bloodiest fighting since the Taliban's ouster in 2001, the militants have stepped up their attacks in recent months against Afghan and foreign troops led by NATO and the U.S. military. Foreign forces have already warned civilians to avoid their military convoys in the face of rising Taliban suicide attacks against them. These attacks have resulted in...

18 minutes ago KABUL, Afghanistan - A boat crossing a river in Afghanistan's most dangerous province sank on Saturday, and at least 60 people were killed, including Taliban militants, the Defense Ministry said. The boat sank while crossing the Helmand River, which snakes through Helmand province, the world's leading opium poppy region and site of fierce battles the last several months. Hundreds of Taliban insurgents are believed to be in Helmand. The Afghan army was investigating to see how many Taliban insurgents and how many civilians were on board, the ministry said. Elsewhere, suspected Taliban militants attacked a local police...

DUBAI (AFP) - Al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri praised the slain Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah and called his death a "good omen for victory" against the US-led coalition in Afghanistan, in a video posted on the Internet Tuesday. Dadullah, known as the Taliban's top military strategist, was killed in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province on May 11 in a joint Afghan and international operation. One-legged Dadullah was the most senior Taliban figure to be killed since the 2001 toppling of the extremist group's government. A purported voice recording of Zawahiri confirms Dadullah's death in the video produced by As-Sahab, a media...

Excerpt - SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan, May 14 (Reuters) - Taliban sources confirmed on Monday that the movement's top operational commander was killed in a clash with Western and Afghan forces, and said Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar was pondering a replacement. ~ snip ~ "Yes, Mullah Dadullah has been killed," a Taliban source said. "It is a very big loss for us because Dadullah was a very important commander and Taliban's war planner against coalition and Afghan forces," a senior Taliban commander, who preferred to remain anonymous, told Reuters. Mullah Omar, whose whereabouts are not known since the Taliban's ouster,...

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, May 13 — The Taliban’s top operational commander, Mullah Dadullah, has been killed in southern Afghanistan, and his body was displayed by Afghan officials in this southern city today. The commander was killed in a joint operation by Afghan security forces and American and NATO troops in Helmand Province, the governor of Kandahar, Asadullah Khaled, said. News agencies reported that the Taliban was killed in fighting in the Nahri Sarraj district, a strategic area of Helmand Province that the Afghan intelligence service reported Saturday had been cleared of Taliban after an operation this week. A statement released by...

The Taliban's top operational commander, Mullah Dadullah, has been killed in Afghanistan, security officials said on Sunday. The officials did not have details of where and when Dadullah was killed. "Mullah Dadullah has been killed and his body is in Kandahar," one official told Reuters.

Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban's military commander in southern Afghanistan, is reported to have been surrounded by Afghan troops, sources have told Al Jazeera. About 200 Taliban are believed to be with Dadullah, one of Nato's most-wanted men, in the province of Uruzgan, a senior official in the Afghan intelligence service said. Taliban spokesmen have told Al Jazeera that heavy fighting and bombing is going on in Uruzgan province, but they said Dadullah was currently in Helmand province.

A leading Taliban commander in Afghanistan has been filmed brutally beheading eight men accused of spying for British and American forces.The horrifying video broadcast by a Pakistan television station shows Mullah Dadullah - an elusive figure thought to lead the guerilla movement in southern Afghanistan - hacking off the victims' heads and placing them on their lifeless torsos. The video is similar to those produced by al Qaeda and related militant groups who have kidnapped and then executed hostages in Iraq. The chilling images are part of a concerted attempt by the Taliban to terrify ordinary Afghans out of cooperating...