The last few weeks have seen hundreds of Taliban fighters killed in the norther provinces (the tribal areas) of Pakistan. I have been posting on those activities here. Well, today we add another 41 to the list of Taliban on their way to meet Allah, now in Southern Afghanistan across the border from the Pakistani activity:

Afghan security forces backed by coalition helicopters attacked a suspected Taliban hideout in southern Afghanistan, setting off an intense gunbattle that killed 41 rebels, a provincial governor said Saturday.

Six Afghan police officers also died in Friday’s fighting in Sangisar, a town 25 miles southwest of Kandahar, said Asadullah Khalid, the provincial governor. Nine police and several militants were wounded.

“Acting on intelligence reports that Taliban have gathered in Sangisar to plan an attack in Kandahar, we launched this operation Friday and the fighting continued from morning to evening,” he said.

The intelligence against the Taliban is getting better and better it seems. To have detected the pending attack and stopped it before it happened is a good sign.

For some reason, the US media is not reporting on the efforts on the Pakistani side of the border.

Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal belt has been infested with al Qaeda remnants and Taliban who fled Afghanistan after U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban regime in 2001.

A campaign to rid the tribal areas of al Qaeda switched to North Waziristan from South Waziristan last year, and there have been a series of fierce clashes in the past month and over 250, mostly tribal militants, have been killed since early March. Osama bin Laden is believed to have passed through North Waziristan during his escape from Afghanistan in late 2001.

This is clearly a coordinated pincer effort to rid the region of the Taliban and Al Qaeda – but the US media apparently only reports on US deaths and injuries.

Addendum: Of course, when we have a serious mistake, like this one, it is proper to report on it to some degree, but I think the details could have been toned down a bit.  Now everybody is out on the treasure hunt:

Maps, charts, and intelligence reports on computer drives smuggled out of a US base and sold at a local bazaar describe how Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders have been using southwestern Pakistan as a key planning and training base for attacks in Afghanistan.

The documents, marked ”secret,” appear to be raw intelligence reports based on conversations with Afghan informants, and official briefings given to high-level US military officers. Together, they outline how the US military came to focus its search for members of Taliban, Al Qaeda, and other terrorist groups on the border region with Pakistan and Pakistani territory.

American investigators have paid thousands of dollars to buy back the stolen drives, according to shopkeepers outside the major military base here, but many were still on sale yesterday.

The military is still trying to determine how security was breached at the heavily guarded Bagram Air Base, which coordinates the fight against Taliban and Al Qaeda militants.