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...Serbian tabloid Press. It claimed that the Western powers fixed the Eurovision contest in order to ensure Serifovic's victory. "Lulled by a triumph in Helsinki, Serbs are expected to calmly swallow the imminent secession of Kosovo," the paper claimed. The status of Kosovo, the southern Serbian province populated mostly by ethnic Albanians, is currently being debated in the United Nations Security Council. The Western powers favor granting the territory independence from Serbia, while Moscow sides with Belgrade in opposing...
...fact that he had to be buried in a secret location underscored the importance of Mullah Dadullah to the Afghan insurgency. Afghan authorities announced Monday that the Taliban's top military commander, slain in a weekend operation led by U.S. forces in southern Afghanistan, had been laid to rest in secret lest his burial site become a rallying point for resistance. They, together with NATO officials, hailed his death as a critical blow to a spiraling Taliban insurgency, and it will certainly be a welcome victory for a coalition that has been losing support as a result of the mounting...
...Taliban, in part because his own brutality may have eliminated a number of potential successors. "He killed the guys above him, so quite a lot of capable or respected leaders have disappeared in his move up the ranks of the Taliban," says a Western Intelligence official in southern Afghanistan. A possible successor, Ahktar Mohammed Osmani, was killed in December in an air strike. Another, Obaidullah Akhund, was captured in February. But it remains to be seen whether Dadullah's death will herald a breakdown of the Taliban's command-and-control structure, or inspire his followers to avenge...
...Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed Zaher Azimi said Dadullah's death, in the southern province of Helmand, could open a schism between rival Taliban commanders in the south and prompt defections from less committed fighters. "I think Dadullah's death will affect enemy ranks. We know he was the key Taliban figure who had the ability to center the Taliban efforts under a central command," he said...
...precise details of his death remain unclear. NATO said he was killed during U.S.-led operations when he "left his sanctuary into southern Afghanistan." Intelligence officials said he was killed in the southern province of Helmand. But it remained uncertain whether Dadullah had been killed by an air strike or in ground combat, Western military officials said...