Top Taliban figure caught in Pakistan

 UPDATE:There are conflicting global news reports that Mullah Dadullah has been killed by Pakistani security forces after suffering wounds from  a gunfight during his capture.

 

The noose is tightening

around Taliban leadership that continues to fight against coalition forces in Afghanistan.

Pakistani

security forces critically wounded a top figure in the Taliban militia fighting

U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan,

among six militants captured after a firefight near the border Monday, the army

said.

Source: usatoday.com via watermon

Mansoor Dadullah was one of the militants captured and is the half brother to

Mullah Dadullah, the senior Taliban military commander in Afghanistan

until his death in 2007. Until Mansoor's earlier dismissal as a Taliban leader

he was a commander of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

A Taliban leader on

Wednesday denied reports about his expulsion from the radical movement and

claimed he was ‘indispensable’ to the militia.


 


Mullah Mansoor Dadullah said: “I have not been expelled from the movement. I

have served the Taliban and without me the movement would stand nowhere.”

Source: dawn.com via watermon

Back in May 2007 Mansoor Dadullah was released from an Afghan jail with other Taliban militants in

exhange for Daniele Mastrogiacoma, an Italian-Swiss journalist, to the dismay

of the United States.

The

United States is criticizing

Italy

for its deal to free five Taliban prisoners in exchange for the release of an

Italian journalist.

Source: cnn.com via watermon

Joint Chiefs of Staff,

Admiral Mullen recently met with top officals in Islamabad

concerning the growing threat of militants using the Pakistan

remote tribal areas as a staging ground as cover in the war against coalition

forces across the border in Afghanistan.

In

a written assessment to Congress last week, Admiral Mullen said he believed the

next terrorist attack on the United

States would probably be started by Qaeda

terrorists operating from the Pakistani tribal areas. On Saturday, he referred

to the “mutual” interest of the United States

and Pakistan

in quashing the “upsurge in violence” from “an enemy that will not cease.”

Source: nytimes.com via watermon

This latest development in the capture of

Taliban militants in Pakistan illuminates

the growing problem that is developing with cross border insurgency.

NowPublic

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