A deputy commander for an al-Qaeda linked insurgent group was apprehended in an overnight operation in eastern Afghanistan that claimed the life of a woman, NATO said yesterday.
Separately, the coalition reported that a US service member died on Thursday in an explosion in the south, bringing to at least 18 the number of US troops killed so far this month. NATO did not release details about the death.
NATO said the deputy commander, who was captured by a joint Afghan and coalition force in Khost Province, ran weapons for the Haqqani network and reported directly to the group’s senior leaders across the border in Pakistan.
US officials have described the Haqqani network as the most potent threat to US forces in Afghanistan.
When the troops arrived at the scene, they saw two men running from the targeted compound to another nearby. They fired after seeing someone point a weapon out of a window. Inside the room, they found one woman dead and another with a minor injury. An AK-47 was next to the female victim and a rifle and another AK-47 also was found in the building, NATO said.
“Afghan and coalition forces do not intentionally target women and we take these incidents very seriously,” said US Army Colonel Rafael Torres, a spokesman for the coalition.
Troops at the scene treated the injured woman, who was later evacuated along with two male relatives to a coalition forces medical facility.
While questioning the men at the scene, the security force identified and detained the deputy commander along with several suspected insurgents.
Also in the south, an assistant police chief was killed by a roadside bomb on Thursday and three policemen were injured when insurgents attacked a police post in the Dihrawud District of Uruzgan Province, deputy provincial police chief Gulab Khan said.
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