Taliban leader 'severely injured'
A leader of Afghanistan’s deposed Taliban militia was critically injured in a US air strike last month, and nobody has seen him since, a news agency reported.
Five of Maulvi Jalaladin Haqqani’s bodyguards were also seriously wounded in the American bombardment on November 16 outside the Afghan city of Khost, in Paktia province near Pakistan’s western border, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press reported.
It said Haqqani, reportedly allied with al-Qaida, was transferred to an unknown destination afterwards, and that nobody has seen him since then, leading to local speculation that he had died.
Several people were killed in that evening’s air strikes, the agency said, quoting residents who said it was difficult to tell if Haqqani was among them.
The agency quoted one resident of Zadran, near Khost, as saying that fresh graves were evident in the Haqqani family graveyard and relatives were frequently arriving to mourn in recent days.
A US-led coalition news release about the top Taliban leadership, dated Sunday, listed Haqqani as ‘‘REP KIA’’ - reported killed in action. It did not elaborate.
