The US commando strikes on Taliban targets in Afghanistan, including the home of supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, masked another more secret intelligence mission, a report has said. The New York Times quoted defense department officials as saying on Saturday that the attacks covered an operation by other elite commandos aimed at uncovering the locations and movements of Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders. The covert action could have continued long after the lightning strikes near Kandahar ended, and that intelligence material seized during the overt operations may have been used to fuel the secret mission, it said.
The paper said that army rangers, which were among the more than 100 special forces troops deployed in Afghanistan on Saturday, had in the past coordinated their actions with the US army's secret counterterrorist unit, Delta Force, sometimes causing diversions to allow Delta Force to operate undetected. Bureau Report