The Other Front

While the world debates the status of Iraq in the Long War on Terrorism, we shouldn't forget that there is another front in this battle. The original front. The front on which most of the "international community" originally bestowed its stamp of approval - before loosing interest and withholding funds promised for defense and reconstruction.

(Ok, not all nations have fallen short on their promises, but it is easy to say that support has not been as full throated as we may have desired.)

From this original front, now relegated to being the "other" front comes the following news. Looks like this less-looked-over surge is producing promising gains.

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Afghan and ISAF forces clearly have good intelligence on the movement and locations of several senior Taliban leaders, including two members of the Taliban's Shura Majlis, or executive council. Mohammad's death follows the death or captured of several senior Taliban leaders since December 2006. Numerous regional and district-level Taliban commanders have been killed or captured during the same time period.

• U.S. forces killed Mullah Akhtar Usmani, a member of the Taliban Shura Majlis, or executive council in December 2006. Mullah Omar's former deputy, a former foreign minister, and the operational commander in Uruzgan, Nimroz, Kandahar, Farah, Herat and Helmand provinces in southern Afghanistan.

• Afghan forces captured Taliban spokesman Dr. Muhammad Hanifon January 16, 2007. Hanif has given numerous interviews with the media, and issued press releases and rebuttals to NATO and Afghan statements. He was said to have been in instant satellite phone and email contact with the press. Hanif claimed that Mullah Omar is operating out of Quetta.

• In late February, Pakistani security forces arrested Mullah Obaidullah, the Taliban Defense Minister during the reign of the Taliban from 1996 until the United States toppled the government in the fall of 2001. Obaidullah “is considered by American intelligence officials to have been one of the Taliban leaders closest to Osama bin Laden, ” as well as part of the "inner core of the Taliban leadership around the Mullah Muhammad Omar who are believed to operate from the relative safety of Quetta." Obaidullah was a member of the Shura Majlis, and was thought to be the Taliban's third in command.

• The Afghan military confirmed Mullah Dadullah Akhund, the brutal, charismatic, and respected Taliban military commander and leader of the forces in southern Afghanistan, was killed during an air strike on May 13. Mullah Dadullah sat on the Taliban Shura Majlis He was the Taliban's most senior military commander and reported to have been one of Mullah Omar's most trusted advisers. Dadullah joined forces with the Taliban at its formation in 1994. After the fall of Afghanistan in 2001, Dadullah fled to South Waziristan in Pakistan, where he reconstituted his forces and continued to fight NATO and Afghan forces. Dadullah orchestrated and promoted the Taliban's suicide campaign in Afghanistan.

• On June 12, ISAF forces killed Mullah Mahmud Baluch, a senior Taliban commander in the Helmand and Nimruz provinces.

Just a reminder that there is another nation in which US troops, together with a coalition of nations, are engaging in working with a brave people to secure liberty of conscience from a deadly international band of thugs, murders and tyrants.

On Principle,
CBass