Taliban commander Mullah Atiqullah captured in Afghanistan

THE Australian military says it captured a Taliban commander in a joint operation Afghan police last month.
The captured Taliban leader, Mullah Atiqullah, is responsible for the kidnapping of New York Times journalist David Rodhe and two Afghans working with him.

"Taliban commander Mullah Atiqullah and two of his close associates were captured on the afternoon of April 3, in an Afghan-led operation," a defence statement said today.

Atiqullah is now understood to be in the hands of the Afghan government after being initially passed to Dutch forces.

"Mullah Atiqullah was in charge of trying to establish Gizab as a safe haven for the Taliban," Defence said.

The department only offered sparse details of where the Taliban operatives were discovered, saying it was somewhere in the mountainous Gizab region within Oruzgan province.

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Major General John Cantwell said on the same day Australian special forces discovered a weapons cache that included mortars and an anti-tank mine.
HeraldSun