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KANDAHAR, Afghanistan : The Afghan government said Sunday top Taliban military commander Mullah Dadullah was killed in southern Afghanistan in its most significant success against the insurgent movement.
The Taliban however denied that its notorious one-legged commander was dead, promising to produce a fresh recording of his voice to prove that he was alive.
Afghan authorities presented a bloodied body to journalists in the southern city of Kandahar that they said was that of Dadullah, who has claimed to lead thousands of men and have hundreds more ready to carry out suicide attacks.
The features were similar to those of the famous militant, who has appeared in several photographs and television interviews. There was a bullet wound to his head and another to his chest.
The corpse was also missing the lower part of one leg -- one of the trademarks of the fighter, although many men in Afghanistan have lost a limb after decades of war.
Kandahar governor Assadullah Khalid said authorities were certain they had the right man because the operation that killed him in Helmand province on Saturday was based on "exact information."
"After the operation we picked his body from among other bodies. The appearance, specific signs match those of Mullah Dadullah," he said.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force was involved in the operation, he said, but ISAF refused to comment, referring all queries to the Afghan government.
The Afghan interior ministry said Dadullah was killed in Helmand's Girishk area, alongside his brother and several other fighters. Girishk was where he lived, it said in a statement.
"According to security officials in Helmand, a number of enemies have been captured," it said.
Helmand governor Asadullah Wafa said the operation that killed the commander was late Saturday.
"Yes, Dadullah has been killed. Obviously it will have an impact on the current insurgency because he was a key Taliban fighter, a big commander," he told AFP.
Dadullah is the most important rebel commander to be killed since the Taliban was driven from government by a US-led coalition in late 2001.
Intelligence agency spokesman Sayed Ansari described him as the "biggest Taliban commander ever killed."
"He was the commander of commanders," he said.
Television stations interrupted routine broadcasting to give breaking news of the killing.
But a Taliban spokesman rejected the government's claim. "This is nothing more than propaganda," spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP.
"They claim they will show the body of Mullah Dadullah to media -- we are waiting to see that. We also promise to present to the media a fresh voice recording of Mullah Dadullah."
The government of President Hamid Karzai "want to boost the morale of their losing soldiers in the south with such propaganda," he said.
The one-legged militant was known as the key military strategist behind the insurgent Taliban and was said to be close to the rebels' fugitive supreme commander, Mullah Mohammad Omar.
Khalid described Dadullah as a "hangman and a killer."
He was involved in the beheading of Taliban hostages, including two Afghan colleagues of an Italian journalist captured in March and freed two weeks later in exchange for five Taliban prisoners.
Analyst Wahid Mujda, who was a civil servant in the 1996-2001 Taliban government, described him as the "Zarqawi of Afghanistan," referring to the slain leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
His death would be the most significant since key Taliban commander Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani, a close associate of Osama bin Laden, was killed in Helmand on December 19 in an air strike on his vehicle.
- AFP/yy/ir
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