Jan. 1: Coalition forces killed the top-ranking Taliban official in restive Kunduz Province during an overnight raid, according to the Afghan police and a local governor.
The officials said that Mullah Bahador, the Taliban’s shadow governor in the province, was killed late on Thursday night. Abdul Rahman Saidkhaili, the provincial police chief, said the target of the raid was a house in the Chardara district. In a statement, 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.”
Coalition officials could not be reached on Friday to try to confirm the name of the man who was killed. Several suspected insurgents were arrested in the operation, the statement said.
Formerly stable, 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 after coalition operations against them in southern Afghanistan. Kunduz City is now nearly cut off by violence, with all roads leading out controlled by the Taliban and other armed groups.
The governor of Kunduz was killed in October by a bomb as he prayed in a mosque, and four Taliban suicide bombers killed five policemen two weeks ago. 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.