One down, many to go

The New York Times has an article by Abdul Waheed Wafa and Mark McDonald:

A senior Taliban leader responsible for numerous roadside bombings and suicide attacks against NATO forces has been killed, along with nine other insurgent fighters, NATO said Monday. Maulawi Hassan, described as a well-known Taliban commander in southern Afghanistan, was killed Saturday in an attack on his compound near Kajaki, in Helmand Province, according to a NATO statement. “He became known for his insurgent activities in the autumn of 2008 and was heavily involved in several illegal activities,” the statement said, noting that there had been no civilian casualties in the attack. The statement said Mr. Hassan had reported directly to Mullah Rahmatullah, the Taliban commander who directs insurgency efforts from outside Afghanistan. The police chief of Helmand Province, Assadullah Shirzad, said the killing of Mr. Hassan and his men was “an important achievement for Afghan and NATO forces in Helmand, and a real blow to the Taliban”.
Commander Paula Rowe, a spokeswoman for NATO troops in Helmand, said the operation dealt “another serious blow” to the Taliban insurgency in the south.
A Taliban resurgence in southern Afghanistan has focused on Helmand, Uruzgan, and Kandahar Provinces, and attacks there have risen sharply in recent weeks. On Monday, Taliban fighters killed eight police officers and wounded another one when they attacked a patrol in the Spinbaldak district of Kandahar Province, the Associated Press reported, citing a police officer, Sahib Jan.
A day earlier, rockets hit the principal coalition air base in Kandahar. One contractor died and six others were wounded in the attack, the Associated Press said. The large airfield, used as a jumping-off point for coalition missions against Taliban forces across the south, comes under rocket fire almost routinely, but the death on Sunday was the first at the base, the United States military said. Two NATO soldiers also were killed in the area on Sunday, the coalition said in a statement, without providing details.

Rico says with placenames like Spinbaldak, you gotta love Afghanistan...