Mullah Dadullah, another one legged jihadist captured again...

Late News The Scotsman reports Reuters that a man claiming to be Dadullah told them by phone 20th May 2006 he was alive and well and not captured.

September 23rd 2000 Afghanistan's ruling Taliban movement publicly executed two men accused of working with opposition forces and carrying out bomb attacks in the capital Kabul.The two blindfolded men in their late 30s, their hands tied behind their backs, were hanged by the neck from ropes attached to two separate cranes. (see pic)

The site was close to the famous Ariana square where the Taliban executed former communist president Dr Najibullah and his brother when the Taliban movement captured Kabul.

Mullah Dadullah, the one legged Pashtun Taliban military chief, told reporters that the two men were involved in the recent bomb blasts including a missile attack on Kabul airport and at other Taliban military installations.

On March 12, Sibghatullah Mujaddedi, the former president of Afghanistan and the current chairman of the upper house of parliament, was wounded in a suicide car-bomb attack in Kabul.Taliban military commander Mullah Dadullah claimed responsibility for that suicide attack, warning that "attacks against American puppets will continue" In December 2005, Dadullah warned that "we have prepared 200 young men who are ready to sacrifice and carry out suicide bombings against the U.S. and its allies in Afghanistan"

According to Waheed Mujda, a former high-ranking member of staff in the Taliban's Foreign Ministry, "When fighting against Ismail Khan [the current minister of water and energy supply] in the first months of the Taliban's formation in 1994, Dadullah stepped on a land mine near Herat city, and lost his leg."

Today the BBC have been told that , Mullah Dadullah, has been captured by international troops in Afghanistan, and to have been detained in the southern province of Kandahar. However he has a habit of re-appearing ...For instance,Dadullah reportedly escaped the U.S. and Northern Alliance onslaught of the Taliban regime in the winter of 2002 and surfaced in South Waziristan, Pakistan, where he raised funds and organized the Taliban insurgency. Then in early February 2003 , Yusuf Stanezai—the spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry—stated in an interview with Kabul-based Tulu TV that Dadullah had been killed during fighting in Helmand province ). Once again, Dadullah somehow survived. Just 10 days after the rumor of his death, Dadullah appeared on al-Jazeera television announcing his link and support to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (al-Jazeera, February 13).

"We currently do not have any information but are looking into the claim," said Lieut. Tamara Lawrence, a U.S. military spokeswoman about the identity of the one legged jihadist they had captured, addeing pessimistically . "
"There was an operation and three high-ranking Taliban commanders have been captured but I cannot confirm that Mullah Dadullah was one of them," said the Afghan spokesman, Karim Rahimi to Reuters.

Coalition troops captured the insurgent during a battle in the Panjwayi district of Kandahar province on Wednesday, fighting that led to the deaths of 18 militants and a female Canadian soldier, Capt. Nichola Goddard. About 35 rebels were reported captured in the battle. This brings the reported deaths to more than 170 the number of Taliban killed in several major battles in Afghanistan since last Wednesday.

Last year a special anti-terrorism court in Quetta Pakistan sentenced Mullah Dadullah in his absence to life in prison for trying to kill Maulana Shirani, a Pakistani parliament member (Pajhwak Afghan News, December 29, 2005).a member of the Pakistani parliament.

Three years ago, Mullah Dadullah told the BBC the Taleban, deposed in 2001, hoped to regain power in Afghanistan.

He is quoted as saying In a satellite phone interview with The Associated Press in December ..

“Our suicide attackers will continue jihad until Americans and all of their Muslim and non-Muslim allies are pulled out of the country.” He ruled out reconciliation and talks with Karzai's government, saying it "owed its existence" to non-Muslims, and to do so would amount to "joining Christianity and working for Christians." and claimed the country's new parliament -- its first in more than 30 years, inaugurated the previous week -- was "obedient to America."

The Arabic satellite channel, al-Jazeera, conducted a 23 minute interview with Mullah Dadallah, the military commander of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Monday, February 13, 2006, and claiming the universality of the jihad said, “The problem with Iraq is a problem of all Muslims. We are not fighting here for Afghanistan, but we are fighting for all Muslims everywhere and also the Mujahideen in Iraq. The infidels attacked Muslim lands and it is a must that every Muslim should support his Muslim brothers. If they withdraw from Afghanistan we will still fight them.”