By IRNA,
London : A Taliban fighter accused of masterminding a string of attacks on UK forces in Afghanistan has been killed in a “deliberate and surgical strike,” Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has announced.
The 35-year-old leader was identified as Sadiqullah. He was said to have been killed by Hellfire missiles fired from a British helicopter last week.
The announcement comes on the heels of two more British troops being killed in Afghanistan over the weekend, bringing the total fatalities suffered by the UK in June to 13, two more than in the previous five months of this year.
This month’s total is the second highest inflicted on Britain’s deployment in Afghanistan since September 2006, when 19 servicemen died, including 14 killed in a Nimrod aircraft crash.
Altogether, 110 UK troops have been killed during the six-and-a- half year war. All but seven have died since British soldiers were sent to Helmand province two years ago.
The deteriorating situation in Afghanistan was also underlined at the weekend by the US Pentagon warning Taliban had regrouped. The UN has also revealed that the number of civilians killed in the first half of 2008 was up by nearly two-thirds to 698 compared with 2007.
According to the Guardian newspaper Monday, British defence officials described Sadiqullah as “a mastermind” of many of the improvised roadside devices, mines and suicide bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan.
British military spokesman in Afghanistan Lt Col Robin Matthews, was quoted saying his killing was “a deliberate and surgical strike against a man who facilitated a number of fatal attacks on British, Nato and Afghan forces and civilians. It strikes a blow at the heart of the Taliban leadership.”