Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah killed
Updated on 13 May 2007
Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban's top commander in southern Afghanistan, has been killed.
The death of Dadullah represents the biggest setback to the Taliban command since the insurgency began, after its Islamic militia government was toppled by US backed forces in 2001.
'It's the biggest setback to the Taliban since they started resistance in 2001'Peshawar journalist
"He was killed last night and right now I have his body before me," Assadullah Khalid, governor of neighbouring Kandahar province, said.
An Interior Ministry statement said Dadullah was killed in fighting with security forces in Helmand's Girishk district on Saturday night. Officials from NATO and the US-led coalition could not confirm it.
The one-legged Dadullah has been reported to have been captured or killed several times in the past, but this time the authorities appeared sure he was dead.
The bearded face was pale and splattered with blood, and he appeared to have suffered a head wound.
A senior Pakistani security official, who requested anonymity, gave a different version, saying Dadullah was killed on Friday night in an airstrike.
But an Afghan intelligence official said that was incorrect, and Dadullah died from wounds rather than being blown to pieces by a bomb or missile strike.
Afghanistan's al-Zarqawi
"He was an inspirational and daring commander. I don't see any person of his standing in the Taliban heirachy."
Apart from leading most Taliban attacks in the south, Dadullah's savagery earned him the sobriquet of Afghanistan's Al Zarqawi, after the al-Qaeda leader in Iraq who was killed last year.
Dadullah was believed to be behind a campaign of suicide bombings and a series of kidnappings of foreigners and Afghans and beheadings of hostages or collaborators.
In December, US-led forces killed another top Taliban official, Mullah Mohammad Akhtar Osmani, in an air attack in the south of the country after a tip-off by Pakistan.
