A Taliban key commander Mullah Mansoor, the military operational
chief of the Taliban outfit, was among 21 armed insurgents who have been killed
in northern Afghanistan’s Kunduz province, an army spokesman in the northern
region Ghulam Hazrat Karimi claimed here today.
“Mullah Mansoor, the
military operational chief of Taliban in Kunduz province and deputy to shadow
district governor of Imam Sahib district are among 21 rebels who have been
killed in crackdown against Taliban since Sunday night,” Karimi told media.
About 30 more militants have been injured and the Taliban
fighters have been expelled from several villages in Imam Sahib district over
the past several hours, the official asserted without commenting on security
forces casualties.
Meanwhile, Mahboubullah Sayedi, the governor of Imam Sahib
district has confirmed that three security forces had been killed and six
others injured since the clash erupted in the district late on Sunday. However,
villagers have reported killing four civilians including women and children and
injuring five others due to the ongoing fighting in Imam Sahib district of
Kunduz province. Taliban militants haven’t commented.
US general wounded in last week’s Afghan insider attack
A US general was shot and wounded in a Taliban-claimed attack on
a high-level security meeting last week that killed a powerful Afghan police
chief, Nato’s mission in Afghanistan said Monday.
Brigadier General Jeffrey Smiley was among 13 wounded when a
gunman wearing an Afghan security forces uniform opened fire on the gathering
that included General Scott Miller - the top US and Nato commander in
Afghanistan - in the southern city of Kandahar.
Miller was unhurt in the shooting inside
the heavily fortified Kandahar provincial governor’s compound that Nato’s
Resolute Support described as an “Afghan-on-Afghan incident”.
A Nato service member was killed in
Afghanistan’s western province of Herat in an apparent insider attack, the
Resolute Support mission said in a statement on Monday. “A Resolute Support
service member was killed in Herat province,” the statement said. “Two other
service members were wounded in incident.”
General Abdul Raziq, an anti-Taliban strongman
credited with keeping a lid on the insurgency in the south, was killed along
with the provincial intelligence chief and an Afghan journalist. The Taliban
claimed responsibility for the brazen attack, saying Miller and Raziq were the
targets. But American officials denied the US general was a target.
Smiley suffered non-life threatening
gunshot wounds and was “in Germany receiving further treatment”, Resolute
Support confirmed. The general arrived in Afghanistan in August to head a
Resolute Support mission called “Train, Advise, Assist and Command - South”
based in Kandahar.
In the incident’s wake Tadeen Khan - a
brother of Raziq and a member of the Afghan security forces - has been
appointed acting provincial police chief, interior ministry deputy spokesman
Nasrat Rahimi told AFP. Rumours on Afghan social media networks that Resolute
Support carried out the attack on Raziq were dismissed by Chief Executive
Abdullah Abdullah on Monday, who blamed “the enemies of the Afghan people and
their regional supporters” for the gossip.
“Such rumours are justifying the
enemies’ atrocities,” Abdullah - Afghanistan’s equivalent of prime minister -
said in comments at a regular ministerial meeting that were broadcast on Afghan
television.
That the Taliban could mount a deadly
insider assault in such a secure location has rattled Afghanistan, a country
long used to high-profile targeted killings and violence. It was also an
unusual incident for the US military, whose generals seldom face attack and are
rarely wounded.
Parliamentary
elections held across Afghanistan over the weekend were postponed in Kandahar
for at least a week as the government scrambles to secure the province. Fifteen
suspects have been arrested over the shooting so far, national intelligence
chief 