NATO claims top Taliban leader killed in Helmand

Kabul, Mar.24 (ANI): NATO officials are claiming that a senior Taliban leader responsible for numerous roadside bombings and suicide attacks has been killed along with nine other insurgent fighters.

Maulawi Hassan, described as a well-known Taliban commander in southern Afghanistan, was killed in an attack on Saturday on his compound near Kajaki, in Helmand Province, the New York Times quoted a NATO statement, as saying.

Hassan had reported directly to Mullah Rahmatullah, the Taliban commander who directs insurgency efforts from outside Afghanistan.

The police chief of Helmand Province, Assadullah Shirzad, said the killing of Hassan and his men was "an important achievement for Afghan and NATO forces in Helmand, and a real blow to Taliban."

A Taliban resurgence in southern Afghanistan has focused on Helmand, Uruzgan and Kandahar Provinces and attacks there have risen sharply in recent weeks. On Monday, Taliban fighters killed eight police officers and wounded another when they attacked a patrol in the Spinbaldak district of Kandahar Province.

A day earlier, rockets hit the principal coalition air base in Kandahar. One contractor died and six others were wounded in the attack. (ANI)