Joint Sting Bags Another Key Taliban Leader

On the heels of news that US and Pakistani forces working together captured the Taliban’s No. 2 leader comes word that the cooperative effort has bagged the group’s “shadow governor” of Afghanistan’s northern Kunduz province. The Pakistanis pinched Mullah Abdul Salam last week in the northeastern city of Faisalabad—about the same time, sources tell Newsweek, as Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar was apprehended.

Mullah Salam was among the Taliban’s most ruthless and effective leaders, Newsweek adds, masterminding attacks on German NATO forces whose deadliness landed him on the alliance’s most-wanted list.
(More Mullah Abdul Salam stories.)