“Taliban Zarqawi” DEAD?
Have been gone so I missed a ton, but Allahpundit has a great roundup for you!
Update: The Taliban is either in denial or busy trying to build a myth, but the official word from NATO has finally come.
Qari Yousef Ahmadi, a purported Taliban spokesman, denied that the Taliban commander had been killed.
‘’Mullah Dadullah is alive,” Ahmadi told AP by satellite phone. He did not give further details.
NATO’s International Security Assistance Force confirmed the death, saying that after Dadullah left his ‘’sanctuary” in the south, he was killed in a U.S.-led coalition operation supported by NATO and Afghan troops:
A tribal leader from the Nad Ali district of Helmand province said ground forces and helicopters surrounded a home in Dadullah’s home village of Kakeban, killing the Taliban leader and seven militants. A Helmand government official, meanwhile, said Dadullah was killed while traveling in his vehicle in southern Helmand.
Update: The Taliban is promising a “fresh voice recording” of Dadullah to prove that he’s alive. This was a guy known for his videos, mind you, so the fact that they’re promising audio only is telling. The governor of Kandahar says there’s no doubt it’s him because the tip they got was based on “exact information.”
Update: Looks like the Taliban has already given up the ghost ” the BBC says they’ve confirmed Dadullah’s death too after initial denials.
Update: Meanwhile, the Taliban continues to run rampant across the border in western Pakistan, forcing the U.S. to take desperate measures like this.
Update: Here’s why they call him the Taliban Zarqawi:
He is also thought to be responsible for ordering numerous assassinations of clerics, government officials and health and education workers, kidnappings and beheadings, including of foreigners, and for many of the suicide bombings that have killed or wounded hundreds of Afghans and dozens of foreigners in the last year and a half.
A longtime mujahed 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-nineties in the central Afghanistan province of Bamiyan, peopled mostly by Shiite muslims who were resisting the Taliban advance.
- Riehl World View
- Blog-o-Fascists
- Cop The Truth
- Pajamas Media
- Michelle Malkin
- American Pundit » Blog Archive » Taliban Commander in Afghanitan Killed
- JammieWearingFool
- Public Secrets: from the files of the Irishspy
- Muslim Chicken “Taliban Zarqawi” Killed (a.k.a. Mr. Stank Breath & The Gimp) « tmq2
- Ace of Spades HQ
- Blue Star Chronicles
May 16, 2007 - 07:33 PM on May 16th, 2007
They should take pictures of the corpse and disseminate them widely. It would be a harsh blow to the Taliban’s morale and hurt their recruiting efforts if it could be proven that their official spokesman is lying about Dadullah’s death. It might actually get some of the villagers who are currently afraid of the Taliban to rise up against them and provide intel to the Coalition forces. We didn’t happen to find this guy by accident, someone spilled the beans about where he was going to be. Accidently or intentionally doesn’t matter, the results are the same.