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This could be a breakthrough in capturing Taleban leadership and military commanders who have pledged an increase in hostilities and suicide attacks in Southern Afghanistan this year as U.S. forces are pulling back.
KANDAHAR (BBC News) May 19 — A top Taleban leader, Mullah Dadullah, has been captured in Afghanistan, Afghan officials have told the BBC. The senior military commander was said to have been detained by international troops in southern Kandahar province.
Governor Assadullah Khalid told Reuters: “We’ve arrested three high-ranking Taleban, members of their leadership council.” Mullah Dadullah was a member of the Taleban’s 10-man leadership council before the US-led invasion in 2001.
Mullah Dadullah: «We will continue our jihad»
The BBC’s Alastair Leithead in Kabul says Mullah Dadullah is very close to the Taleban leader, Mullah Omar. Mullah Dadullah has survived a number of attacks and lost one leg in battle. He has a reputation for being one of the Taleban’s most brutal commanders.
High-ranking Afghan officials have told the BBC that he was captured in Kandahar and is being held by the coalition forces. There are no details as to how he was caught.
KANDAHAR (CBS News) May 19 — The militant was captured in a joint Afghan-coalition operation in Kandahar province, said Gen. Rehmatullah Raufi, head of the Afghan military’s southern region.
Mullah Dadullah, who lost a leg fighting for the Taliban during its rise to power in the mid-1990s, is one of the hard-line militia’s top commanders, responsible for operations in eastern and southeastern Afghanistan.
Raufi said coalition troops captured the militant in the Panjwayi district of Kandahar province during fighting that led to the deaths of 18 militants and a female Canadian soldier. About 35 militants were detained in that fight.
Raufi said the militant without a leg was seriously wounded and unconscious in a military hospital. He said there was a “good chance” the fighter was Dadullah but that he did not know for sure.
A senior Afghan government official said “we’re pretty sure” Dadullah was in custody, though officials had not confirmed his identity. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the matter publicly, said “a couple of other big fish” may have been caught, but he gave no further details.
Both Dadullah and Taliban leader Mullah Omar are Pashtun, and Dadullah is one of the most trusted followers of Omar.
RISE IN HOSTILITIES IN AFGHANISTAN
What the Taliban wants, ideally, is to fill the void in each village as U.S. forces pull out of southern Afghanistan later this year and hand over operations to ISAF/NATO.
“The Taliban never really went away,” CBS News consultant Jere Van Dyk says. “What happened was the Americans felt, and a lot of observers felt throughout the world, the Taliban were defeated very easily. But, in fact, what they did was move back into the countryside, they took off their black turbans, went and became farmers, and they observed.”
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
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