Nato strike targets Taliban leader

Nato said it "believed" it killed early on Wednesday a Taliban leader linked to an uprising in the nearby town of Musa Qala, which the Taliban overran on February 1, and to an attack on Tuesday against a dam in nearby Kajaki.

"We have removed yet another Taliban enemy leader who will no longer threaten the peace and security of the Afghan people and their future," Lieutenant-Colonel Angela Billings, an ISAF spokeswoman, said.

Wali Mohammad, a resident of Musa Qala, said the air strike against the compound in a small village a half hour outside Musa Qala killed 20 fighters who had sought shelter there the previous night.

Neither Nato or Afghan officials could confirm that death toll.

Violence has spiked in the southern province of Helmand the last two weeks. The governor said some 700 foreign fighters are in the region around Musa Qala and Kajaki, in the mountainous northern edge of the province.

Fighters killed

Nato and Afghan forces killed 22 Taliban fighters in separate clashes near Musa Qala and Kajaki the last several days, officials said on Tuesday.

The government is negotiating with local elders in hopes that Taliban fighters will leave Musa Qala peacefully, though thousands of residents have fled out of fear of an impending attack by Nato and Afghan forces.

Colonel Tom Collins, a spokesman for the Nato-led force, said Western troops were waiting to see if the dispute could be resolved through negotiations but were ready for military action if the government so requested.

Commander held

Also on Wednesdsay, Afghan authorities announced they had captured Mullah Daud Trabi, a senior Taliban commander who had been the Khost provinice's chief of the "vice and virtue" police that imposed the Taliban's ultra-conservative moral code during their 1996-2001 hold on power.

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