Afghan troops and US-led military forces have captured two Taliban commanders during a hunt for militants in western Afghanistan, the defence ministry said Sunday. "We've captured two Taliban commanders - Mullah Mohammad Rahim and Mullah Sultan," defence ministry spokesman General Mohammed Zahir Azimi told AFP.
Azimi said that both men were deputies to infamous Taliban commander Mullah Brader Akhund, a close aid to the ousted militia's fugitive leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.
Intelligence reports led the troops to the arrests in Farah province on Saturday. The pair had been key players in the insurgency in the area, Azimi said, adding that Sultan had been identified by the US military as a bomb-maker. The Taliban, who were forced out of the power by a US-led invasion in late 2001, continue to wage a hit-and-run insurgency against the US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.
More than 65 people have died in Taliban-related violence over the past week, 21 of them in a suicide bomb attack in the southern city of Kandahar.
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