Two terrorist leaders, one dead, one alive, both out of the picture

Yesterday FOX News reported that Mansoor Dadullah was captured by Pakistani forces, and wounded in the confrontation he and his other brethren had with them:

Pakistani security forces critically wounded a top figure in the Taliban militia fighting U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, one of six militants captured after a clash near the border Monday, the army said.

Mansoor Dadullah, brother of slain Taliban military commander Mullah Dadullah, and the five others were challenged by security forces as they crossed from Afghanistan into Pakistan's southwestern province of Baluchistan. They refused to stop and opened fire, said army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas.

"Security personnel returned fire. As a result, all of them sustained injuries and all of them were captured," Abbas said. "Dadullah was arrested alive but he is critically wounded."

Earlier, a senior military official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists, said Dadullah died of his wounds while being flown to a hospital with the other injured men.

His death isn't confirmed. In fact Bryan Preston notes that both the NY Times and AP say he's not dead yet, but he is off the battlefield,a nd it hands the Taliban another setback.

The other guy is a lesser known figure to the world, but he's well known in Israel. From Haaretz:

The Lebanese-based guerilla group Hezbollah said Wednesday that its deputy leader Imad Mughniyah was killed Tuesday evening in a bomb blast in a residential neighborhood of Damascus, and accused Israel of responsibility for the explosion.

"With all pride we declare a great jihadist leader of the Islamic resistance in Lebanon joining the martyrs ... The brother commander hajj Imad Mughniyah became a martyr at the hands of the Zionist Israelis," said a statement carried on Hezbollah's television station.

The Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem initially declined comment, but later issued a statement denying Israeli involvement.

Mughniyah headed Hezbollah's operations branch serving in a role similar to chief of staff, and had been wanted by Israel and the United States for years due to his role in numerous bombings, hijackings and abductions in which hundreds of people were killed.

He was wanted for the bombings of the Israeli embassy and the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1992 and 1994, as well as a wave of abductions of Westerns in Lebanon in the 1980s.

Mughniyah lived a highly secretive life, constantly moving between states like Lebanon, Iran, and Syria. In the 1990s, foreign reports claim, Israel's Mossad intelligence agency tried unsuccessfully to assassinate him in a complex operation in southern Beirut.

However, the operation killed his brother, a car shop owner in Beirut. Mughniyah was expected to be present at the funeral, giving an additional chance to assassinate him, but he never showed.

The cause of the Damascus explosion, which occurred about 10:45 P.M. Tuesday evening in the upscale Kafar Soussa neighborhood, was not immediately known.

I'd shed a tear for him, but I don't weep for animals that use terror as a weapon against innocent men, women, and children.

All in all, I'd say that the war had a couple of good days, with one in custody, and the other one obviously blew himself up. Silly terrorist, bombs are for professionals.

Publius II