Kabul: Nato forces captured two key insurgent leaders in Afghanistan, while a service member was killed in a deadly bombing that raised to three the number of coalition troops killed since the new year began, the multinational alliance said on Sunday.
The Nato fatalities — all in Taliban's traditional southern stronghold — kicked off 2011 on a grim note for the international coalition. The British defence ministry identified one of two troops killed on Saturday as British.
Nato officials say they are making major progress in the war, but note that the gains are reversible. Insurgents are using Pakistan as a base for some of their operations and the government of President Hamid Karzai is widely seen by many Afghans and international observers as so far unable to offer key services to a population struggling for a sense of normalcy.
The coalition, however, has stepped up efforts to quell the insurgency — issuing daily announcements of Taliban leaders or their aides captured or killed in joint operations with their Afghan counterparts. The aim is to both undercut the insurgency and to pressure the Taliban to consider peacemaking.
A delegation from the Afghan High Peace Council, set up in last October by Karzai, will travel to Pakistan tomorrow to try to initiate talks with the Taliban, said Ataullah Ludin, deputy chairman of the 70-member peace council.
While the council pursued peace, Nato was pressing ahead with its military operations.
In the east, a region bordering with Pakistan, Nato said it had arrested an insurgent leader in the feared Haqqani network — Al Qaida-linked militants who operate out of neighbouring Pakistan and launch attacks in eastern Afghanistan.
