US troops kill Taliban Commander

KANDAHAR (Afghanistan)—Coalition forces backed by Afghan soldiers killed a regional Taliban commander in southern Afghanistan in a clash that left also left a US soldier and an Afghan interpreter dead, officials said Friday.
The US and Afghan forces were moving into position for an offensive operation when the firefight occurred on Thursday in Daychopan district of the volatile southern province of Zabul, the US military said in a statement. The military said two rebels were killed in the fighting.
Ali Khail, spokesman for the governor of southern Zabul province, identified the slain commander as Thor Mullah Manan. The statement said Manan was in command of three other Taliban sub-commanders and responsible for the movement of equipment and personnel throughout the northwest Zabul province.A district level Taliban commander was killed in a clash with US and Afghan government troops on Friday, a provincial official said, the latest incident in a wave of violence in the run-up to September 18 elections. A spokesman for the Taliban confirmed that the commander, known as Tor Mullah Abdul Manan, had been killed in a battle in Zabul province, in the south.
One of Manan’s men was killed and a US soldier was wounded in the fighting in a notoriously insecure district, said the provincial governor’s spokesman, Gulab Shah Alikhail. A US military spokeswoman said she had no information about the fighting.
Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi confirmed Menan had been killed. He said Menan’s brother and wife were also killed, as well as eight government soldiers. US and Afghan government forces have mounted a series of operations in the south and east in recent months aimed at rooting out militants and ensuring security for the elections.
US forces said this week they had killed a senior Taliban commander responsible for attacks in Uruzgan province. The Taliban, ousted by US and opposition forces in 2001, have condemned the vote and claimed responsibility for attacks on several candidates. Afghan and U.S officials say the rebels will not be allowed to disrupt polling.
In a separate incident, three Taliban rebels were killed when a bomb they were planting beside a road in Zabul province went off, Alikhail said. Two Afghan government soldiers were killed in a clash in Helmand province on Thursday night, another insurgent hot spot in the south, an official in that province said.—Agencies