U.S. air strikes targeting a meeting of Taliban leaders killed a high-ranking commander involved in the kidnappings of 23 South Koreans two months ago, Afghan officials said Tuesday. Meanwhile, NATO reported that another of its soldiers had died in an explosion in Afghanistan, where violence has soared this year amid a Taliban-led insurgency. Mullah Abdullah Jan, the Taliban commander of Qara Bagh district in Ghazni province, was among 12 killed in the strike on a mud-brick housing compound overnight in neighboring Giro district, said Ghazni provincial police chief Gen. Ali Shah Ahmadzai. The U.S.-led coalition said «several» suspected militants were killed and four detained during an operation in Giro that included gunfire and airstrikes, but it could not immediately confirm that Jan was killed, the Associated Press reported.
