 Afghan and U.S. forces surrounded an area in Afghanistan on Thursday where senior commanders of elusive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar were thought to be hiding, Afghan security officials said.
| I don't think I'd get my hopes up. Mullah Omar's pretty good at hopping his motorcycle and leaving his loyal minions in the lurch — if it's him they have surrounded in the first place. |
The operation, backed by U.S. helicopter gunships, followed a big U.S.-backed offensive that killed more than 100 militants in the same region of the border between Kandahar, Uruzgan and Zabul provinces in the past three days, the officials said. Those holed up in the Dai Chopan area included Mullah Dadullah, a member of the Taliban's 10-man leadership council headed by Omar, and Mullah Brother, another commander thought close to the Taliban leader, the Defence Ministry said.
| Oh. So it's not Mullah Omar. I don't know anything about the motorcycling skills of the other guys... |
Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ishaq Paiman identified the others as Mullah Abdul Hakim, Mullah Abdul Hanan and Mullah Abdul Basir. Mullah is a title for a Muslim cleric used by many top Taliban members. General Mohammad Muslim Hamid, army commander for the southern region, said the area had been surrounded and the Taliban commanders were believed to be hiding there.
| Yeah, but I still don't expect great results from surrounding them... |
General Fateh Khan, another commander taking part in the operation, said it involved Afghan security forces, as well as U.S. helicopter gunships and U.S. ground troops. A U.S. military spokeswoman said she had no information about the operation. Fateh Khan said the Taliban commanders were with more than 150 of their fighters.
| Is that before or after subtracting the 100 deaders? |
Fateh Khan said troops were closing in from three sides to try to capture them, which would be a major coup for the government of President Hamid Karzai. Reza Khan, a man sentenced to death last year for killing four journalists in 2001, including two from Reuters, said at his trial Mullah Brother, one of the Taliban commanders believed hiding in the Dai Chopan area, had ordered the killings. The journalists were Australian television cameraman Harry Burton and Afghan photographer Azizullah Haidari of Reuters, Spaniard Julio Fuentes of El Mundo and Italian Maria Grazia Cutuli of Corriere della Sera. Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal said 103 guerrillas had been killed in three days of fighting and the offensive had been a major blow to the Taliban's bid to disrupt Sept. 18 parliamentary elections, the next big step in Afghanistan's difficult path to stability.
| Being dead does tend to disrupt your plans, doesn't it? |
He said most were killed by U.S. helicopter gunships as they fled Mian Nishin, a district the rebels seized last week, and included three commanders -- Mullah Jamil, Mullah Ghani and Mullah Easa. Sixteen fighters had been captured, he said. Mashal's figure would bring the guerrilla death toll reported by the government and U.S. forces in clashes in the southwest in the past week to more than 153. Hundreds more guerrillas have been reported killed in a surge of clashes this year.
| Boy, they're gonna depopulate all of Pakistan in a mere 17,576 years at this rate... |
Three Afghan troops were killed and six U.S. soldiers wounded, while two U.S. helicopters were damaged by ground fire. A U.S. air force pilot was killed when his U-2 spyplane crashed on Wednesday after a mission over Afghanistan. Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi said on Wednesday seven guerrillas had been killed including Easa. He said no Taliban fighters had been captured. |
![watch US special forces in Afghanistan [filter as needed, MSM "reporter"]](http://i.cnn.net/cnn/video/world/2005/06/23/afghan.vs.cnn.jpg){kind=link}