A combined Afghan and Coalition special operations team captured a “senior Taliban military commissioner” and killed six fighters during a raid in the northern province of Takhar yesterday.
The senior commander, who was not named, served as the military commissioner for six of Takhar’s districts and had been promoted to serve as the deputy shadow governor just two days ago, the International Security Assistance Force stated in a press release. He also facilitated foreign fighter suicide bombings and led attacks against Afghan forces in the province.
Takhar province has become a sanctuary for al Qaeda and allied terror groups such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. The presence of terror cells has been detected in the districts of Rustaq and Darquadh; or two of Takhar’s 12 districts, according to an investigation by The Long War Journal.
The special operations forces captured the commander during raids on “a compound and a nearby campsite north of Dashi-e Qal’eh in Darquad district.” Six Taliban fighters were killed in ground and air attacks, while another fighter was captured along with the commander.
The Taliban commander replaced Mohammed Amin, a senior leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan who also served as the deputy provincial shadow governor. Amin was killed during a strike on a convoy in the remote district of Mustaq on Sept. 2. Between eight and 12 of his bodyguards were also killed, according to ISAF.
The strike that killed Amin created controversy, as several provincial officials claimed that the attack killed 10 civilians who were members of a national parliamentary candidate’s convoy. Abdul Wahid Khurasani, the candidate who was among those wounded in the strike, claimed that ISAF aircraft targeted all six vehicles in the convoy and said the vehicles were clearly marked with campaign posters, according to The New York Times.
The New York Times also reported that “a former jihadist commander who had recently returned from an extended trip to Pakistan” had accompanied Khurasani. The commander was named Amanullah and “was a relative and a strong supporter of his candidacy.”
President Karzai initially condemned the Sept. 2 strike but has not ordered a follow-up investigation, indicating he accepts that the strike hit a legitimate target, US officials in Kabul told The Long War Journal.
“Karzai jumped the gun on this one and he isn’t going to push it,” a US official said.
ISAF is conducting an investigation, but has stood by the results of the strike. ISAF has not issued a statement acknowledging or apologizing for civilian casualties caused by the Sept. 2 strike, as it has in previous incidents.
6 Comments
Only 2 days on the job? Sounds like a PsyOp to me. They must have already had this guy scoped out and were ready to nail him when they got his predecessor. Figured he would be next, so they held off until it was official, then grabbed him just after he got the information download needed for his new job. Very Nice.
Everyone is now waiting to see who his replacement is. It would be great if the same thing happens again, and to his successor to the old job
No wonder targeted killings are so effective. The idea of stepping up to fill a position knowing that it could get you killed the next day does more than a little damage to morale.
Well, killed or captured I should have said.
its good too see he is dead. this is the end of the Taliban scum.
the traps must be working
making full proof id cards will stop a endless supply of Taliban men.
in each are, you will need a id card. once they try attack and get killed or ambushed with there own ambush into a trap. that will be 5 / 400 / 3,000 less Taliban men that can be in that area.
after 1 year you will see mass areas cleared & no new Taliban can move in to that area.
so they scan there eyes and fingerprints and take there photo, then make them a id card.
they then make scanning hand held devises that are portable. 24/7 in them areas, they will ask for every persons id card / scan there eye. if not jail. must have id card to be in that area. over 3 years of setting up traps to kill the id cards off. there will be no Taliban left.
setting up traps is done in many ways.
driving mass MRAPS only on 20 roads in big numbers. to show the Taliban the best spot to plant ied bombs. its a trap.
they don’t have 5,000 drones to cover all roads, so you only drive on 20 in mass number , showing Taliban good cover up to there roads. then you put drones over them 20 roads 24/7 waiting for them to take the bait.
turning a ambush on American troops, into a ambush on the Taliban.
every time the troops go out for a 4 hour walk, they will put drones or choppers over there head.
let the spotter see the troops. then the Taliban set up traps down down the road kms away. but the drone will see a ambush up ahead and take them out. or if attacked, the Taliban will be killed very fast.
you use 5 drones and 2 coppers to do this in 24 hours.
troops go for there walk for 4 hours. the drone will fly from 1 group to the next group, covering 60 groups of troops in 24 hours.
that’s how you kill them, and how you take away there full proof id cards to kill them off and clear out Taliban men, and stop a endless supply or men / replacing them men.
its just like north Korea and south Korea.
they only just got thins strategy along with Israel.
if south attacks the north. the north will be able to fire 20,000 artillery shells an soul and cause mass damage and dead, before America can take out there artillery canons . what do you do.
you put up 70,000 blimps and cheap barrage balloons. from the border up to soul / every city.
now the north can fire 50,000 shells at soul, and everyone will hit the blimps / barrage balloons and blow up.
they will all stop there missiles as well.
there is also a way to stop there only missile that can carry a nuclear bomb.
Iraq also need’s to put 1.6 meter check points around government buildings and police stations and the market.
this will see a end to mass truck bombs.
if the check point cop is getting money to let them past, he can not. 1.6m check point high.
so even if the check point cop wanted to let them past, he could not. the check points around them places will only be 1.6 meters high.
also they needed to stick video cameras at all check points near / around government buildings / the markets & so on.
if the check point police let the car past with explosives in it, they will see who did.
so the video cameras will show the check point cops looking at all cars. if a car blows up at the markets or a gov building. they will look at the market cameras or gov building cameras, then look at the check point cameras near the attack.
that will show what check point cop let that car past within explosives in it.
they have been given this strategy, along with 97% or the Iraq war strategy that they did 07 / 08.
they have been given that strategy a year ago, but must want Iraq to stay in a bad way.
i could be her all day. well to put 100s of strategy’s on this blog.
its funny because i have all the proof. document dates, video recording of strategy plans, why at a sports game, showing the strategy’s and the game and the ins and out and the score and every think that would prove it was way before they did them.
the only strategy that they did fast, was the cement wall of sardar city. but that was at least 2 months beforehand. i did say to build cement walls to block of that area, but them said build it all the way around to force them to give up. it was that or in 3 months they would run out of weapons anyway.
i remember whey the tried to go in to sardar citys before that.
its was like turn off mobile phone towers fulls. the scum called each other and grouped up, forcing the other troops back / iraqis.
Good news.
It’s a shame the feckless Western media by and large focus only on the casualties and rare tactical setbacks that the Coalition forces and our Afghan partners incur.
Americans and Europeans, absent exposure to sites like LWJ, are getting a very skewed and negative portrayal of events in this admittedly complex and challenging COIN campaign.
@ArneFufkin
You hit the nail on the head:
‘Americans and Europeans, absent exposure to sites like LWJ, are getting a very skewed and negative portrayal of events in this admittedly complex and challenging COIN campaign. ‘
If I hadn’t discovered LWJ I would have pretty much no idea what the coaltion forces are doing over there at all, let alone know about the actual progress that is being made. All the MSM focuses on are the incidents where the AQ or Taliban seem to have success and I find it rather hard to stomach that when this is going on the BBCs morning show would rather be talking about the latest series of the TV Show Merlin.