By DPA
Kabul : The Afghan Defence Ministry claimed Thursday that a senior Taliban commander was killed in an international forces’ airstrike in southern Afghanistan.
Afghan army soldiers were ambushed by a group of insurgents while the troops were on their way from Sangin district of volatile Helmand province to Sarwan Qalah area on Thursday morning, the defence ministry said in a statement.
It said army forces fought back and called in close air support, which killed several insurgents.
“Mullah Brodar, one of the famous Taliban commanders, was among the dead insurgents,” the statement said, citing army forces on the ground.
Mullah Brodar was one of the prominent military commanders during the radical Taliban regime that was ousted by US-led campaign in late 2001. He then joined the insurgency against international forces in the provinces of Uruzgan and Helmand, according to Waheed Muzhda, a political analyst who had worked as a foreign ministry official in the Taliban government.
Brodar had very close ties with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, Muzhda said, adding, “If the news is true, it is another blow to the Taliban movement.”
Also Thursday morning in the same province, Afghan and US-led coalition forces battled a group of Taliban militants in Musa Qalah district of the province, the statement said, adding that Afghan army hit an insurgents’ vehicle with rocket-propelled grenade, killing all the insurgents riding in it.
No Afghan or coalition forces were hurt in either combat, it added.
In a separate incident, a soldier with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and his Afghan interpreter were killed Thursday while on a routine patrol in a southern region, the military said.
The soldier’s identity was withheld pending notification of his next of kin, ISAF said while not elaborating on the location or the type of attack.