Taliban Commander Killed In Battle

A top commander of the former Taliban regime who allegedly led rebel fighters in southern Afghanistan was killed in a shootout with Afghan forces, officials said Tuesday.

The commander, identified as Hafiz Abdul Rahim, was killed late Sunday in Kandahar province along with 14 other fighters, Malim Syed Ali Khan, the head of the local administration in Maruf district, told The Associated Press.

Khan Mohammed Khan, the military chief of Kandahar province, and Haji Grani, the commander of Kandahar's 7th Corp. military unit, confirmed Rahim's death in satellite phone calls with AP.

Afghan forces also captured a front-line Taliban commander, who was identified as Mullah Abdur Rahman, and took him to Kandahar, the provincial capital, for interrogation. The troops also seized assault rifles, rockets, heavy machine guns and hand grenades, Khan said.

Rahim, a former police chief with the Taliban before a U.S.-led coalition ousted the militia in late 2001, was suspected of leading attacks against government troops in southern Afghanistan.

Rahim's body was turned over to U.S. military authorities, Grani said.

Rahim was a native of Spinboldak, an Afghan town near the Pakistani border, many of whose residents are believed to be sympathetic to the ousted Taliban regime.

The clash in which Rahim died occurred after 60 to 70 Taliban fighters attacked the headquarters of the Maruf administration, Khan said.

Five government troops were wounded, two of them seriously in the battle, which lasted four hours.

Last week, two Taliban officials told The New York Times the group had begun using small guerilla attacks as part of a strategy to wear down U.S. forces and convince Washington to retreat from the country.

A man who identified himself as a Taliban commander told the newspaper he was confident that the U.S., exhausted by a slow, expensive and frustrating conflict, would flee Afghanistan in two or three years, just as Soviet forces had in the 1980's.

"How is it possible that America will continue to do these things for many years?" he asked. "Just think — one plane — how much is it to take off and land?"

Another official, who said he was a Taliban spokesman, claimed fugitive leader Mullah Muhammad Omar was commanding Taliban troops from his Afghan hideout. He said U.S. forces were overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan and called for foreign volunteers to aid the Taliban.

The spokesman said he hoped the U.S. would open more fronts in the war on terror.

"We are offering prayers that they should start in one or two more places," he said. "When America goes to open one or two more places it will be good for Muslims."

The two men said the Taliban would kill Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and said the group was responsible for an earlier assassination attempt last year in Kandahar. One of the men said they reserved the right to kill foreign and Afghan aid workers they considered spies.

The Times interviewed the two men separately and on the condition that their real names not be used and the country where they spoke not be named. Their claims could not be independently confirmed.

About 9,800 American troops and 3,000 others remain in Afghanistan carrying out operations against the insurgents, who have becoming increasingly bold in recent months.

More than 100 Taliban were reported killed in about nine days of battles with coalition forces in mountains of southern Zabul province. One U.S. special operations soldier and an unknown number of Afghan troops also died in the fighting.