Airstrike Said to Kill Taliban Mastermind Prompts Dispute in Afghanistan by Fahim Abed and Fatima Faizi – New York Times
Afghanistan’s intelligence agency said on Wednesday that the mastermind of a bloody attack on the agency’s base this week had been killed in an airstrike, but residents and local officials in the area said the airstrike had in fact targeted a group of hunters on a hilltop.
In a daring attack on Monday, the Taliban used an armored Humvee it had seized from Afghan forces, packing it with explosives and driving it onto an Afghan intelligence base to detonate. At least 40 intelligence personnel were killed and 60 others were wounded.
The intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, said in a statement on Wednesday that its forces had traced the mastermind of of that attack, a man they identified as Commander Noman. The agency said it had targeted him and seven others it described as terrorists on Tuesday with an airstrike in Maidan Shahr, in the center of Wardak Province…