Australian Special Forces Kill Taliban Commander in Afghanistan

Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Australian special forces killed a top Taliban insurgent involved in bringing foreign fighters into Afghanistan and recruiting suicide bombers, the Department of Defence said.

Mullah Abdul Rasheed helped coordinate bomb attacks against international forces in the southern province of Uruzgan, the department said. He may also have organized a rocket attack that killed an Australian soldier earlier this month.

“Rasheed was a senior commander in the Baluchi Valley and was believed to be responsible for Taliban operations in the area resulting in the deaths of Coalition Force members and Afghan civilians,” the department said in a statement.

Australia has about 1,000 military personnel stationed in Uruzgan province and around Kandahar Airport as part of a NATO- led campaign against the Taliban insurgency. The Islamist movement has stepped up its offensive against Afghan troops and the 60,000 international soldiers deployed in the country in a bid to topple President Hamid Karzai’s government.

Armed clashes have risen to the highest level since the Taliban were ousted in 2001, the United Nations says.

Rasheed was killed in an operation involving Australia’s Special Operations Task Group, the department said. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said in a statement he was killed on Jan. 7.

‘Significantly Disrupted’

The killing of Rasheed will have “significantly disrupted insurgent operations in Uruzgan province,” said Lieutenant General Mark Evans, Australia’s chief of joint operations.

Yesterday’s announcement of Rasheed’s death came on the day of the Melbourne funeral of Private Gregory Sher, the Australian soldier killed in the Taliban rocket attack in Uruzgan. He was the eighth Australian serviceman to die in Afghanistan.

The Australian military announced last week it is investigating reports its troops were involved in the wounding or killing of nine Afghan civilians in the Baluchi Valley.

Karzai has repeatedly criticized international troops for civilian deaths in Afghanistan. From January through August last year, 1,445 civilians were killed in Afghanistan, either by international and Afghan forces or militants, an increase of 39 percent on the same period last year when 1,040 died, according to the UN.

To contact the reporter on this story: Michael Heath in Sydney at mheath1@bloomberg.net.