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Taliban commander killed in southern Afghanistan - US military
U.S.-led coalition and Afghan forces have killed a suspected Taliban commander responsible for numerous rocket attacks, ambushes and other guerrilla-style assaults in southern Afghanistan, a U.S. military spokesman said Monday. Payenda Mohammed, who was thought to have led about 150 rebels, was killed along with three other militants in a fierce battle in Kandahar province Wednesday, said Col. James Yonts. Some 15 other insurgents were wounded. An assessment of the number of militants killed was continuing. During the battle, A-10 warplanes and attack helicopters were called in to bomb caves along a ridge where the militants had sought shelter. After the fighting, vehicles and weapons were found stashed in the caves, Yonts said. No Afghan or coalition troops were wounded in the fighting, he said. Afghan and coalition forces have stepped up attacks in recent months in an attempt to prevent the Taliban from subverting landmark legislative elections on September 18. Hundreds of suspected rebels have been killed. On Sunday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he was confident the elections will be peaceful. "There will be threats ... but that would not deter the Afghan people from participating. We will soon have a parliament," Karzai told reporters in Kabul. But other Afghan officials, as well as U.S. authorities, have warned that the violence may worsen ahead of the elections, the next key step toward democracy after a quarter-century of fighting. American military commanders have prepared elaborate security plans to safeguard the voting, saying Taliban rebels are throwing all their resources into disrupting the polls. Last week, militants attacked a U.S. military convoy 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of Kabul, wounding three American soldiers, a U.S. military statement said Sunday. Attacks on the U.S. military so close to Kabul are rare and Friday's assault occurred less than a week after a roadside bomb in the capital exploded near a convoy of U.S. Embassy vehicles, wounding two American staff members. In southern Uruzgan province on Sunday, gunmen ambushed a parliamentary candidate, Adiq Ullah, as he was driving, killing him and wounding two others in his vehicle, said provincial Gov. Jan Mohammed Khan. He blamed the Taliban for the murder. Security forces pursued the insurgents, but they escaped, the governor said. Ullah's killing brings to four the number of candidates killed so far in the lead-up to the polls. Four election workers have also been murdered and several election offices have been rocketed.
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