Over 50 Taliban leaders killed in US operation

Taliban fighters stand handcuffed as they are presented to media in Jalalabad on May 23, 2018. Afghan security forces have detained 13 alleged Taliban militants and seized a suicide vest and ammunition during an operation in the city of Jalalabad, Nangarhar governor Hayatullah Hayat said.  (AFP PHOTO / NOORULLAH SHIRZADA)

United States forces killed over 50 Taliban leaders in a series of strikes against those behind a recent attack in the Helmand provincial capital of Farah, US military and NATO commander General John Nicholson said on Wednesday.

After pushing out fighters in Farah, Afghan and US forces continued to pursue them, Nicholson told reporters at the Pentagon via video link.

Under surveillance by the Marines, the Taliban fighters returned to their Helmand stronghold, a center for poppy cultivation.

On May 24, they were spotted in a known Taliban command center in Musa Qala.

“What it looks like is it was a group of commanders, meeting in part to discuss the operation in Farah that many of them had just participated in,” Nicholson said.

“And they obviously thought they were meeting in relative safety in Musa Qala but our intelligence was able to identify the group and effectively conduct the strike,” he also said.

The group was involved in drug trafficking, Nicholson added.

“I would not call it strategic significance but it definitely has a significant local significance in terms of the fight in Southern Afghanistan,” he said.

In a statement, the US command in Afghanistan said the strike resulted in “more than 50 casualties,” among them the number two Taliban leader in Helmand, Abdul Manan, and several district governors and local leaders in Kandahar, Kunduz, Herat, Farah, Uruzgan, and Helmand provinces.         /kga