The Taliban has taken a body blow in its continuing war with NATO and democratic Afghan forces. Coalition forces killed their chief of operations, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani, in fighting near the border this week:

A top Taliban military commander described as a close associate of Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar was killed in an airstrike this week close to the border with Pakistan, the U.S. military said Saturday. A Taliban spokesman denied the claim.

Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani was killed Tuesday by a U.S. airstrike while traveling by vehicle in a deserted area in the southern province of Helmand, the U.S. military said. Two associates also were killed, it said.

There was no immediate confirmation from Afghan officials or visual proof offered to support the claim. A U.S. spokesman said "various sources" were used to confirm Osmani's identity.

Osmani, regarded as one of three top associates of Omar, is the highest-ranking Taliban leader the coalition has claimed to have killed or captured since U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan to oust the Taliban regime in late 2001 for hosting bin Laden.

Osmani has run the Taliban's military operations since November 2001, shortly after Mullah Omar discovered his own shortcomings as a commander in the process of getting routed out of Afghanistan. The posting was supposed to be temporary as Osmani reorganized the Taliban to hold positions in the hills in order to re-engage the Northern Alliance, but Omar ran out of options as the rout grew into a crushing defeat.

In the last five years, Osmani has rebuilt the Taliban forces enough to start challenging NATO and Karzai's forces significantly in some areas. They have returned to their raiding tradition, but Osmani gave them enough discipline to do real damage. They still have not won a single stand-up fight against NATO, but Osmani made them into nasty pests that rarely fight one.

Now that Osmani has gone to his 72 virgins, Omar has to find another field commander that can do what Osmani managed to do over the last five years. No one doubts that the Taliban will fight on after Osmani's death, but whether they can maintain his discipline remains a large question. Certainly, if Omar decides to take control of the armed forces once again, we can expect a major degradation in their fighting effectiveness.

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U.S. strike kills Afghan Taliban leader KABUL, Afghanistan - A top Taliban military commander described as a close associate of Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar was killed in an airstrike this week close to the border with [Read More]

Tracked on December 23, 2006 1:08 PM