WASHINGTON – The Taliban's new top operations officer in southern Afghanistan had been a prisoner at the Guantanamo Bay detention center, the latest example of a freed detainee who took a militant leadership role and a potential complication for the Obama administration's efforts to close the prison. U.S. authorities handed over the detainee to the Afghan government, which in turn released him, according to Pentagon and CIA officials.

KABUL, Afghanistan — Gunbattles and airstrikes by NATO and Afghan troops killed 53 militants in Afghanistan, including a wanted Taliban commander who tried to hide from soldiers under a woman's burqa, officials said Saturday.

WASHINGTON AP) - The Pentagon announced Friday the capture of one of al-Qaida's most senior and most experienced operatives, an Iraqi who was trying to return to his native country when he was captured.

The Pentagon described al-Iraqi as an associate of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and as someone who may have been targeting Westerners outside of Iraq. At one time he served in the Iraqi military, the Pentagon said.

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A senior Pakistani intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that al-Iraqi had operated from Pakistan's tribal regions but disappeared some time during mid-2005. The official said al-Iraqi had commanded al-Qaida forces when they fought U.S. forces in Afghanistan's Shah-e-Kot valley in March 2002.

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The Pentagon said al-Iraqi was born in Mosul, in northern Iraq, in 1961. Whitman said he was a key al-Qaida paramilitary leader in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, and during 2002-04 led efforts to attack U.S. forces in Afghanistan with terrorist forces based in Pakistan.

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The Pentagon said al-Iraqi spent more than 15 years in Afghanistan and at one point was an instructor in an al-Qaida training camp there. Before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he was a member of al-Qaida's ruling Shura Council, a now-defunct 10-person advisory body to bin Laden, the Pentagon said.

"The Taliban are not mujahedeen. They are not fighting for the cause of Islam," the 70-year-old said. "If I got my hands on them I would kill them and even tear their flesh with my own teeth."

"Whosoever has committed this, whether they are Taliban or anybody else or any Afghan or al-Qaida or anybody, they are enemy No. 1 of the Muslims."

"Osama bin Laden Contact With Iraq"

A newly released prewar Iraqi document indicates that an official representative of Saddam Hussein's government met with Osama bin Laden in Sudan on February 19, 1995, after receiving approval from Saddam Hussein. Bin Laden asked that Iraq broadcast the lectures of Suleiman al Ouda, a radical Saudi preacher, and suggested "carrying out joint operations against foreign forces" in Saudi Arabia. According to the document, Saddam's presidency was informed of the details of the meeting on March 4, 1995, and Saddam agreed to dedicate a program for them on the radio. The document states that further "development of the relationship and cooperation between the two parties to be left according to what's open [in the future] based on dialogue and agreement on other ways of cooperation." The Sudanese were informed about the agreement to dedicate the program on the radio.

An Iraqi intelligence service document saying that their Afghan informant, who's only identified by a number, told them that the Afghan consul Ahmed Dahastani claimed the following in front of him:

• That OBL and the Taliban are in contact with Iraq and that a group of Taliban and bin Laden group members visited Iraq
  
• That the U.S. has proof the Iraqi government and "bin Laden's group" agreed to cooperate to attack targets inside America.
  
• That in case the Taliban and bin Laden's group turn out to be involved in "these destructive operations," the U.S. may strike Iraq and Afghanistan.
  
• That the Afghan consul heard about the issue of Iraq's relationship with "bin Laden's group" while he was in Iran.

KABUL, Afghanistan - An Afghan man is being prosecuted in a Kabul court and could be sentenced to death on a charge of converting from Islam to Christianity, a crime under this country's Islamic laws, a judge said Sunday.

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KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan forces have arrested a senior Taliban commander accused of leading attacks against Afghan and U.S.-led troops based in the west of the country, a defense ministry spokesman said on Sunday.

Haji Sultan, a division commander for the Taliban, was arrested with Mullah Mohammad Rahim, another senior Taliban official, in the western province of Farah on Saturday, said the spokesman, Zahir Azimy.

"Haji Sultan was on the U.S. military black list and we handed him over to them for investigation," Azimy said.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) - A suspected al-Qaida suicide bomber walked into a mosque during the funeral of a Muslim cleric and blew himself up Wednesday, killing 20 people, including Kabul's police chief, and wounding 42 others.

The attack was the deadliest in Afghanistan since a surge in violence began in March, casting doubt on U.S. claims that it is stabilizing the country and reinforcing fears that militants here are copying the tactics of those in Iraq.