The news media is filled today with reports that Coalition forces in Afghanistan have killed Mullah Dadullah, a senior Taliban commander:
Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban's most prominent military commander, was killed in fighting in southern Afghanistan with Afghan and NATO troops, officials said Sunday.
Dadullah was killed Saturday in the southern province of Helmand, said Said Ansari, the spokesman for Afghanistan's intelligence service. A government official in Kandahar province who spoke on condition of anonymity said he had seen Dadullah's body.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force did not confirm the death.
"It certainly is an issue that we're tracking," said spokesman Maj. John Thomas.
I'm usually wary of reports emanating from local sources, since the Iraqi government has too often claimed a major kill, only to wind up with egg on their faces. But, based on several articles linked at Hot Air, this one looks like a confirmed kill.
Not only was Dadullah one of the Taliban's top commanders, but but he was a murderous lunatic, too. An article in today's New York Times shows why he has been called the "Taliban Zarqawi:"
Mullah Dadullah was considered one of the most important operational commanders, organizing groups of fighters and obtaining weapons supplies and money across much of the south and southeast of Afghanistan. In the last year he was known to be traveling in Pakistan’s tribal areas to coordinate the insurgency and recruit fighters.
Mullah Dadullah is thought to be responsible for ordering numerous assassinations of clerics, government officials and health and education workers, as well as kidnappings and beheadings, including those of foreigners. And he is tied to many suicide bombings that have killed or wounded hundreds of Afghans and dozens of foreigners in the last year and a half.
A longtime mujahedeen and senior commander of the Taliban, Mullah Dadullah fought on the frontlines as the Taliban seized control of much of the country in the 1990s. He has been accused by human rights groups of massacring civilians during a campaign in the mid-1990s in the central Afghanistan province of Bamiyan, which was populated mostly by Shiites who were resisting the Taliban advance.
Good. The world is at least a slightly better place with this man dead. And, with him gone, one can hope that the Taliban will be less effective in the south of Afghanistan, at least for a while. The confusion this is bound to cause in the Taliban's chain of command might make this a good time to press them hard, while they're still reeling.
LINKS: More on Mullah Dadullah's well-deserved end at The Fourth Rail, with gruesome photos.
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