Thaindian News

Kabul, Jan 1(ANI): Coalition forces in Afghanistan have killed top-ranking Taliban official Mullah Bahador in restive Kunduz Province during an overnight raid, according to Afghan police and a local governor.

The officials said Bahador, the Taliban’s shadow governor in the province, was killed late Thursday night, The New York Times reports.

Provincial police chief Abdul Rahman Saidkhaili said the target of the raid was a house in the Chardara district.

In a statement, without mentioning any name, coalition forces confirmed that they had killed an insurgent leader who “makes improvised explosive devices and suicide vests, leads a group of Taliban fighters and employs antiaircraft weapons against Afghan and coalition forces.”

Mullah Bahador was responsible for coordinating attacks against coalition forces in the Kunduz area, said Abdul Wahid Omar Khail, the governor of the Chardara district.

“He has been doing terrorist activities for the past three years; he was trained in one of the madrasas in Pakistan,” he said.

Officials said Mullah Bahador was the fourth Taliban governor in Kunduz, three previous ones were either killed or fled to Pakistan.

Kunduz Province, which borders the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan, has become increasingly violent in the past two years, as Taliban fighters have relocated there following coalition operations against them in southern Afghanistan.

The city is now nearly cut off by violence, with all roads leading out controlled by the Taliban and other armed groups. (ANI)