Taliban leader slain in British raid

KAJAKI, Afghanistan, June 30 (UPI) -- A suspected leader of a terrorist cell in Afghanistan's volatile Helmand province was killed after a recent Apache helicopter raid led by British troops.

Alleged Taliban leader Sadiqullah, who British officials say was responsible for planning several recent fatal roadside bomb attacks, was the target of a missile strike fired from Apache attack helicopters piloted by British troops from the 664 Army Air Corps, the British Ministry of Defense reported.

Officials, working from intelligence, carried out the strike northwest of Kajaki district in Helmand province. Sadiqullah was traveling with two Hellfire missiles at the time of the strike.

"This was a deliberate and surgical strike against a man who facilitated a number of fatal attacks on British, NATO and Afghan forces and civilians," Lt. Col. Robin Matthews, British military spokesman in Helmand, said in a statement.

"It was conducted with meticulous precision and strikes a blow at the heart of the Taliban's leadership in southern Afghanistan."