US Says Key Taliban Leader Killed but Militants Disagree
    Agence France-Presse

    Sunday 24 December 2006

    Kabul - The US military has hailed the assassination of a top Taliban commander as a major victory in its fierce battle against insurgents in Afghanistan, but the Taliban say the wrong man was hit.

    Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani, described as a close associate of Osama bin Laden, was killed Tuesday in a US airstrike in southern Afghanistan where he led deadly attacks against foreign forces, the military said in a statement.

    He is the highest-ranked Taliban leader the coalition has killed since US forces deployed to Afghanistan to topple the hardline regime in 2001.

    "Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani, a senior member of the Taliban's inner circle, was killed on December 19 in Helmand province," coalition spokesman Tom Collins said on Saturday.

    "His death is a major achievement in the fight against extremists and their terrorist networks," Colonel Collins said.

    The statement said Osmani and two associates were killed instantly in the attack near Afghanistan's border with Pakistan. It did not say if his body had been recovered from the wreckage.

    The Taliban denied the statement, saying the airstrike on the vehicle in a deserted part of the province killed a low-ranking Taliban commander and his three associates.

    "Mullah Akhtar Osmani is alive and inside Afghanistan," spokesman Mohammad Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location.

    "(Instead) Three days ago in a NATO operation surrounding Helmand province, a Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Zahir and three other Taliban were martyred," he said.

    One Afghan intelligence source said Osmani was the commander of Taliban forces in southern Afghanistan where the Taliban-led insurgency has raged against foreign troops seeking to secure the war-ravaged nation.

    Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source said Osmani was part of a 12-member Taliban leadership council and ranked fourth in the pecking order.

    "He is one of the main few Taliban commanders waging the current insurgency. He is considered one of the top four Taliban leaders and is an important strategist for the militia," the intelligence source said.

    "The four main Taliban military strategists and commanders are Mullah Dadullah, Mullah Obaidullah, Jalaluddin Haqqani and Osmani."

    Collins said Osmani was the chief of Taliban military operations in the provinces of Uruzgan, Nimroz, Kandahar, Farah, Herat and Helmand.

    He organised deadly operations, including suicide attacks and roadside bomb blasts, that targeted foreign and Afghan forces.

    He also orchestrated kidnappings and other crimes against locals using Taliban and Al-Qaeda operatives, the coalition said.

    The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force has more than 30,000 troops hunting for Al-Qaeda and Taliban remnants throughout the country.

    Some 4,000 people, many of them militants but also troops and civilians, have died in Taliban-led violence this year alone, Afghanistan's bloodiest since the Taliban movement was removed from power.

    The regime was ousted for failing to hand over bin Laden to US authorities following the World Trade Center attacks. Before the regime was toppled, Osmani headed the Kandahar military corps from 1996 to 2001.

    Afghan defence ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi said Osmani's death was a major success for the Afghan and foreign forces fighting terrorism, but he could not confirm the death independently.

    "His death is a major setback to a big terrorist network," said Azimi.