Top Haqqani Commander Killed

A top militant leader in Afghanistan was confirmed killed by a U.S. drone strike, sources said Sunday despite repeated assertions by Taliban officials that Badruddin Haqqani was still alive. Haqqani was the son of the founder of the terrorist Haqqani Network, which operated from strongholds along the shared border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Badruddin Haqqani is believed to have been responsible for the kidnapping of New York Times journalist David Rohde in 2008. Pakistani officials had said earlier that they were 90 percent certain a Tuesday drone strike had killed Haqqani, though Taliban spokesmen had maintained that he was alive and well.