AFGHANISTAN - Sep 25 - Senior Talib Is Killed.

A senior commander of the Taliban Maulavi Ghaffar, who has been released from the American detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is killed in Uruzgan Province. Ghaffar spent eight months in the Guantanamo prison. He had been captured after fighting for the Taliban in northern Afghanistan. The governor of Uruzgan Jan Mohammad Khan said after Ghaffar release more than a year ago, he was appointed the Taliban's regional commander in Uruzgan and Helmand Provinces. Khan said Ghaffar had carried out attacks against American special forces soldiers and an attack on a district chief in Helmand in which three Afghan soldiers were killed. The governor said officials had learned that Ghaffar planned to attack the police in Chachani, and instead the Afghan forces attacked him, killing him and two of his followers. Khan said that the Afghan authorities had received intelligence that Ghaffar was hiding in a village called Pishi and that security forces launched a raid after surrounding a house. The three men were killed in gunfire, he said, and no Afghan forces were reported wounded. Officials in Afghanistan and the US have suggested in the past that at least five Afghan detainees released from Guantanamo had returned to Afghanistan and to become Talib commanders or fighters. Another commander, Mullah Usman, was arrested in Chachani, Jalali said. Khan said that Mullah Usman had been a district chief under the Taliban and had been responsible for the killing of 16 people in Uruzgan who had voter registration cards. He also said that the Interior Ministry's quick reaction division had found one ton of explosives in Kabul Sep 26, and that suspects were being questioned in that case. The Taliban are active in much of southern and eastern Afghanistan and frequently launch attacks on the US backed government despite the deployment of thousands of US forces to hunt them down. Officials are predicting a surge in violence before Presidential elections in Afghanistan on Oct 9. The interim Pres Hamid Karzai, paid a heavily guarded visit Sep 26 to a northern warlord whose influence could swing the Presidential election. Karzai joined the strongman, Abdul Rashid Dostum, who is also one of the 18 candidates to become the country's first directly elected President. Karzai is widely expected to win the election. But it is unclear if he can secure the majority needed to avoid a run-off, fueling speculation that his supporters are pressing rivals to drop out and join his campaign.