A senior Taliban military commander has been killed in a US airstrike in Afghanistan, officials said on Sunday.
\nAbdul Manan, who was the Taliban’s ‘shadow governor’ in the southern Helmand province, died of wounds sustained during an airstrike late on Saturday said Omar Zwak, a spokesman for the official governor of the province.
\nManan’s death was also confirmed by the Taliban who in a statement described it as a \u201cbig loss\u201d for the group but vowed that it will not affect their military operations.
\nHelmand \u2014 the region that supplies the largest share of Afghanistan’s opium crop \u2014 has been the scene of bitter fighting for years with 10 out of 14 districts of the province either controlled or contested by the Taliban.
\nAs a senior Taliban leader, Abdul Manan had led the insurgency group’s expansion as it expanded control over the opium-rich province in recent years.
\nAfghan interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish said Manan was the militants’ top military leader in southern Afghanistan and his death was a major blow to the Taliban.
\n\u201cHis death will lower the morale of the enemy, and result in (the) improvement of security in Helmand and other southern provinces,\u201d Najib Danish told AFP.
\nDanish said that 32 other Taliban fighters were also killed in the airstrike.
\nA US force spokesman in Afghanistan confirmed the airstrike had killed the Taliban shadow governor.
\n\u201cThe Taliban should consider intensifying peace talks, not the fight. They’re going to have trouble intensifying the fight when their fighters and leaders are under constant assault,\u201d Col Dave Butler said in a statement.
\nAbdul Manan was on the blacklist unveiled mid-October by the Riyadh-based Terrorist Financing Targeting Center (TFTC), which imposed financial sanctions on nine individuals, including six Taliban members.
\nThe killing of the Taliban military leader comes despite increased efforts by the Afghan government and its Western backers to put an end to the 17-year war.
\nUS envoy Zalmay Khalilzad recently expressed hopes that a peace deal to end the war could be struck before the Afghan presidential election, scheduled for April.
\nAt an international conference on Afghanistan in Geneva last Monday, Afghan president Ashraf Ghani said a 12-person negotiating team has been prepared for peace talks.
\nBut the Taliban have rejected Ghani’s overtures, calling the government in Kabul \u201cimpotent\u201d and a \u201cwaste of time\u201d.<\/p>\n
10 civilians killed<\/strong> A senior Taliban military commander has been killed in a US airstrike in Afghanistan, officials said on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c59-islamic-world"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nAt least ten civilians were killed following an airstrike in the eastern Paktia province bordering Pakistan, Afghan officials said on Sunday.
\nShausta Jan Ahady, a former provincial council member, said that women and children were among those killed in the strike carried out a day earlier. He said local residents displayed the bodies and protested on Sunday.
\nProvincial government spokesman Abdullah Hsrat said the airstrike killed four insurgents and that an investigation has been launched into the allegations of civilian casualties.
\n\u201cWe are aware of the reports of civilian casualties, but can’t confirm it right now, as an investigation is ongoing,\u201d said Hsrat.
\nAhady said the area is under Taliban’s control and so exact information is difficult to obtain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"