The US-led force in Afghanistan named Maulawi Jawadullah as the Taliban leader of Yangi Qala district in Takhar province.

He was allegedly wanted in connection with the deaths of at least 10 Afghan police in an attack in the neighbouring province of Kunduz.

NATO said Jawadullah was "directly responsible" for kidnapping and holding hostage Afghan security personnel, and carried out bombings and ambushes.

NATO said an air strike targeted Jawadullah and a group of insurgents, killing five militants.

The military said that an Afghan and coalition ground force then killed three insurgents in hiding "after they threatened the security force".

NATO announced separately that Mullah Ismail, the Taliban shadow governor of Badghis province in the northwest and Abdul Hakim, a Taliban senior leader in the same province were killed during an operation on Wednesday.

The Taliban, the militia leading a nine-year insurgency aiming to bring down the Western-backed Afghan government and evict more than 152,000 foreign troops, operate "shadow" administrations in all the country's 34 provinces.

The military said Ismail had operational control over fighters and suicide bombers, and directed bomb attacks and ambushes on coalition forces.

Afghan officials had already confirmed his death on Wednesday.

NATO said five Taliban leaders have been killed and one captured in Badghis and Faryab provinces over the last 10 days.

US Army Colonel Rafael Torres described the killings as a "huge blow" to Taliban operating in northwest Afghanistan and said their removal "will significantly reduce Taliban influence throughout the region".

earlier related report
US says sorry for fatal chopper strike in Pakistan
Islamabad (AFP) Oct 7, 2010 - The US has apologised for a fatal helicopter strike in Pakistan as it presses Islamabad to reopen a key border crossing to Afghan-bound NATO supply trucks that have come under repeated Taliban attack.

Thousands of oil tankers and supply vehicles have been stranded in Pakistan for more than a week, waiting for the route to reopen to supplies heading for the 152,000 US-led troops fighting a nine-year war in Afghanistan.

The Khyber Pass crossing at Torkham, in Pakistan's militant-riddled tribal northwest, remained closed on Thursday, security officials said.

The foreign ministry said the security situation was being reviewed and that a decision to reopen the route would be made in due course.

US ambassador Anne Patterson issued an apology for the incident last Thursday in which a cross-border NATO chopper strike killed at least two Pakistani soldiers mistaken for militants.

Pakistan shut the main land route at Torkham following the intrusion into its territory.

"We extend our deepest apology to Pakistan and the families of the Frontier Scouts who were killed and injured," Patterson said in the statement released late Wednesday.

"Pakistan's brave security forces are our allies in a war that threatens both Pakistan and the US."

But delicate relations between the two countries could be further strained by a White House report to Congress Wednesday which warned Pakistani forces were avoiding "direct conflict" with the Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaeda in the northwest tribal zone.

The report said the Pakistani military had continued operations against insurgents in lawless South Waziristan, but added that soldiers stayed close to roads and that operations were progressing "slowly".

Meanwhile, some 150 NATO tankers were waiting in fear of Taliban attack at the Torkham border, part of a fleet of 6,500 supply vehicles stranded in the country, although a second crossing in the southwest remains open.

About 120 NATO vehicles have been destroyed in gun and arson attacks over the past week since the border crossing was shut, as Taliban militants step up efforts to disrupt the supply route and avenge a new wave of US drone strikes.

In the latest attack 54 NATO oil tankers were torched in a militant attack on a convoy parked in Nowshera in northwestern Pakistan, police said Thursday.

The Pakistani Taliban vowed further attacks to avenge the latest campaign of US missile strikes against militants in northwest Pakistan linked to an alleged terror plot against European cities.

"We will further intensify attacks with the intensification of US drone strikes on us," Tehreek-e-Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq told AFP.

The United States has massively ramped up its drone campaign in the lawless tribal region on the Afghan border, which it calls the global headquarters of Al-Qaeda and the most dangerous place on Earth.

Eight people were killed Wednesday in the latest attacks by the pilotless planes against militants in North Waziristan tribal district, security officials said.

Pakistan's ambassador in Washington, Hussein Haqqani, told the BBC that the increase in strikes in North Waziristan came after intelligence agencies uncovered the plot to "attack multiple targets in Europe".

He also said that a drone strike on Monday in the district which killed eight militants, including five Germans, was linked to the plot.

The Al-Qaeda plot reportedly targets Britain, France and Germany with a wave of commando-style attacks on key landmarks including Paris's Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame Cathedral and Berlin's Brandenburg Gate.

Officials in Washington say in the past drone strikes have killed a number of high-value targets including former Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud.

However, the attacks fuel anti-American sentiment in the conservative Muslim country and Islamabad has condemned them as a violation of its sovereignty.

The cross-border helicopter attack last week put a further strain on relations between the allies.

Ambassador Patterson pledged that "the US will coordinate with the government of Pakistan to prevent such tragic accidents from taking place in the future".

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