Officials Confirm Taliban Leaders’ Death

WASHINGTON, Nov. 24, 2010 — NATO’s Inter­na­tion­al Secu­ri­ty Assis­tance Force in Afghanistan today con­firmed the deaths of two Tal­iban lead­ers killed in recent Afghan and coali­tion force airstrikes, mil­i­tary offi­cials report­ed.
Both indi­vid­u­als were killed in Hel­mand province Nov. 20.

Sabir, who’s respon­si­ble for plan­ning and direct­ing attacks on Afghan and coali­tion troops, led a 40- to 50-per­son ter­ror­ist cell. He also is tied to weapons traf­fick­ing oper­a­tions through­out the province.
Mul­lah Abdul Aqy­oum, the San­gin dis­trict Tal­iban shad­ow gov­er­nor, held over­all mil­i­tary com­mand for north­ern Hel­mand province. He pro­vid­ed guid­ance and finan­cial sup­port to Tal­iban lead­ers in the area. He also approved all major attacks against Afghan and coali­tion troops there. 

In oper­a­tions yesterday: 

— Afghan and coali­tion forces in Pak­tiya province cap­tured an indi­vid­ual sus­pect­ed of sup­ply­ing Tal­iban with bombs and bomb-mak­ing mate­r­i­al. The sus­pect is con­nect­ed to ambush­es and assas­si­na­tions on devel­op­ment projects, troops and Afghan gov­ern­ment offi­cials. The sus­pect was caught in Gardez dis­trict and tak­en into cus­tody with­out incident.. 

— In Khost province, Afghan and coali­tion forces cap­tured a Haqqani net­work leader con­nect­ed to sev­er­al attacks in the province’s Shamul dis­trict. The indi­vid­ual was tak­en into cus­tody peace­ful­ly after Afghan forces sur­round­ed his com­pound. Sev­er­al oth­er sus­pect­ed insur­gents were also detained. 

— Sev­er­al sus­pect­ed insur­gents and a Tal­iban bomb cell leader were detained by Afghan and coali­tion forces in Hel­mand province. The indi­vid­u­als were attend­ing a Tal­iban funer­al in the Garm Ser dis­trict when Afghan and coali­tion forces received a tip of his loca­tion. The indi­vid­u­als sur­ren­dered with­out fir­ing a shot. 

— Afghan and coali­tion forces con­clud­ed a four-day oper­a­tion through­out Kan­da­har, Uruz­gan, Qalat and Hel­mand provinces that net­ted more than 1,000 pounds of var­i­ous explo­sives, more than 65 var­i­ous types of mor­tars, dozens of small-arms weapons and ammu­ni­tion, bomb-mak­ing mate­ri­als and sev­er­al rock­et-pro­pelled grenades and launchers. 

Source:
Com­piled from Inter­na­tion­al Secu­ri­ty Assis­tance Force Joint Com­mand News Releases 

Face­book and/or on Twit­ter