Kabul - US-led coalition forces reported Saturday the arrest of one Taliban leader and the death of another in a series of recent offensives. Security officials in southern Afghanistan said that a key local Taliban commander was killed Saturday during a joint operation by US and Afghan forces in Zabul province.
Obaid Agha was killed in the attack in Bakarzi, near Qalat City, according to Ghulam Jilani, provincial security chief. Jilani added that several other Taliban militants were injured in the operation.
The raid was part of an operation to strengthen highway security and increase security for government and foreign forces, an official said.
Meanwhile, Afghan and US-led coalition forces detained another Taliban leader in an early morning raid in Espandi village of central Ghazni province earlier in the week.
"The combined forces conducted the raid after receiving credible information from local officials on the location of the insurgent, capturing him within minutes of initiating the operation," read a military statement released Saturday.
The detainee's name was being withheld while a search continued for other members of his group, the statement said. It added that he is allegedly responsible for the deaths of Afghan National Security Forces members, attacks with explosives on coalition forces and the kidnapping of humanitarian aid workers.
No civilian were killed or injured in the operation, the statement said.
Meanwhile, 10 members of the Haqqani network were killed Thursday in the Zadran district of Paktia province. The group had planted roadside bombs and coordinated suicide bombings and other attacks on coalition and Afghan forces in the area, coalition officials said.
The Haqqani network is headed by its founder Jalaluddin Haqqani, a veteran mujahedin leader who fought against Soviet troops in the 1980s and is an associate of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. The group is also associated with the Taliban, Afghanistan's Islamic fundamentalist former rulers who were ousted in a 2001 US-led invasion.
The Haqqani network is primarily active in eastern Afghanistan along the country's border with Pakistan.
In another incident, one Afghan civilian was accidently killed when a joint patrol of coalition and Afghan National Police forces in Zabul province returned fire when they came under attack from insurgents. One insurgent was also killed.
"We regret the loss of an innocent civilian caught in the crossfire and our condolences go to his family," said Col. Gregory Julian, spokesman for the US Forces in Afghanistan.
