NATO-led forces killed a senior Taliban leader with a precision air strike near a southern Afghan town overrun by insurgents, a spokesman for the alliance said Sunday. Col. Tom Collins said the air strike near Musa Qala on Sunday morning killed a senior Taliban leader riding in a car. Musa Qala on Thursday was overrun by an estimated 200 Taliban fighters who disarmed local police, ransacked the district center and hoisted their trademark white flag. The town had been subject to a peace deal brokered last October between village elders and the Helm and provincial government that prevented NATO, Afghan and Taliban fighters from coming within 5 kilometers (3 miles) of the town center. Collins said the Taliban leader was killed within that 5 kilometers (3 miles) zone with the approval of the Afghan government. He said no NATO or Afghan forces were on the ground in Musa Qala. Collins didn't immediately name the person killed in the strike, but Mohammad Wail, a Musa Qala resident, said the air strike killed a Taliban leader named Mullah Abdul Gafoor and some of his associates while they were riding in a truck through a small village just outside Musa Qala. Another resident, Lal Mohammad, told The Associated Press on Saturday that the fighters in Musa Qala were being led by Gafoor, the hard-line militia's corps commander in western Afghanistan during the Taliban regime.
