Afghan government forces have killed the Taliban's shadow governor for the country's northeastern province of Badakhshan during a clean-up operation against members of the militant outfit. Spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry, Sediq Sediqi, said late on Friday that Mawlawi Fasihuddin was killed along with 40 comrades in an offensive in Baharak district of the province, located approximately 93 kilometers (57 miles) north of the capital, Kabul, earlier in the day. The Taliban, however, dismissed the announcement as baseless and unfounded. On September 30, Mullah Abdul Salam, the Taliban's shadow governor for the embattled northern Afghan province of Kunduz, denied reports by Afghan intelligence that he was killed in a US airstrike after the strategic city of Kunduz, located some 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of the capital, Kabul, fell to the militant group two days earlier. "Neither my deputy Mohammad, myself, nor any other comrades have been hurt; we are alright," Salam stated in an interview with the Pashto-language website of Voice of Jihad radio, which serves as the main propaganda outlet for Taliban extremists. Earlier last month, Afghanistan's intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), captured the Taliban's shadow governor for Faryab Province as he was traveling to Pakistan. The NDS stated on its Facebook page that Qari Salahuddin was arrested as he made his way to Quetta, Pakistan. Salahuddin was purportedly nabbed, while traveling in Herat Province. He had planned to enter Pakistan's Baluchistan Province via Kandahar. Afghanistan is gripped by insecurity nearly 14 years after the United States and its allies attacked the country in 2001 as part of Washington's so-called war on terror.
