Taliban commander killed in Afghan clash

13/05/2007| IslamWeb

Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban's chief military commander, has been killed in southern Afghanistan according to government officials.

James Bays, Al Jazeera's correspondent, was shown a body the authorities said was Dadullah's on Sunday morning.

The body was shown to media in the governor's compound in Kandahar.

A sheet was removed from the body up to the knee to show that part of one of the legs was missing. Dadullah lost a leg fighting Soviet forces in the 1980s.

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 and Bays says a Nato source had told him privately that there was still some confusion over the reports but that they did believe the body was Dadullah.

Bays said the Taliban was still confused over whether Dadullah had been killed. Some sources had confirmed the body was his while some others said it was another military commander who also happened to only have one leg.

Standing next to the body Bays said that although he had never met Dadullah face to face, the corpse was either him or someone bearing a striking resemblance to him.

Television stations interrupted routine broadcasting to give breaking news of the killing.

PHOTO CAPTION

Mullah Dadullah. (Reuters)

Al-Jazeera