Afghanistan: Special Forces Kill Taliban Leader in 'critical Blow' to Insurgency

British special forces in Afghanistan have killed a leading Taliban commander in a gun battle in the south of the country, defence sources said yesterday.

The Taliban leader, known as Bishmullah, was killed in Now Zad in Helmand province on Saturday, in an operation described by a British forces spokesman there as "striking a critical blow to the insurgency's command and control capabilities".

Bishmullah is the second prominent Taliban commander to have been killed in a little over two weeks. Fifteen days earlier, Sadiqullah, described as a "senior Taliban facilitator", was killed by a missile fired from an Apache attack helicopter.

British military spokesmen described Bishmullah as a "senior key facilitator and logistician responsible for northern Helmand" who commanded numerous fighters. He had been identified as "a key player in the insurgency, and criminality".

Bishmullah's death would "reduce the Taliban's ability to conduct operations against coalition forces, and in particular, IED [improvised explosive devices] operations, and dent their leadership structure, which had recently been instructed to reorganize and improve".

"Combined with the elimination of Sadiqullah, this is the most significant blow struck against the Taliban logistics and facilitation chain in northern Helmand this year," said Lt Col Robin Matthews, a British spokesman.

US troops, meanwhile, have pulled out of a remote outpost in north-eastern Afghanistan three days after Taliban militants killed nine American soldiers there in their biggest single loss of life in the country since 2005.

Taliban fighters temporarily seized the village of Wanat in Nuristan province, Afghan officials said.