Via Bill Roggio at The Long War Journal.
Afghan and Coalition forces have killed the top Taliban commander in a vital district in Kandahar province after destroying an IED factory in an airstrike.
The clashes took place after Coalition aircraft bombed the Taliban IED factory in Panjwai yesterday. A Coalition and Afghan force raided the attack site and battled with a Taliban force in the area. The combined force “quickly overwhelmed insurgent forces defending the area near the destroyed IED factory,” the International Security Assistance Force stated in a press release on its website.
Izzatullah, the Taliban’s military commander for Panjwai, was among those killed. A police chief put the Taliban casualties at 15, according to Xinhua. Izzatullah “planned and conducted attacks against coalition forces and was involved in the attack on Sarpoza prison outside of Kandahar City in June 2008,” ISAF stated. Several top Taliban leaders were killed during the complex suicide and military assault on Sarpoza prison in the heart of Kandahar City.
Panjwai district is numbered among the major Taliban strongholds in Kandahar; other such districts are Arghandab, Zhari, Maywand, Ghorak, Khakrez, and Shah Wali Kot.
Last week, Coalition and Afghan forces claimed to have ejected the Taliban from Shah Wali Kot during a five-day-long operation in the northern district which included “heavy fighting.” A “significant number of insurgents” were killed, according to an ISAF press release. “Through this operation, the combined force dealt a major blow to more than 100 insurgents and their commanders.
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/06/coalition_and_afghan.php
100 dead terrorists is fine, but we could have really piled up the muzzie carcasses if this war been executed the right way.