Intel from Bin Laden’s compound?

(Daily Mail) — A crack SAS team has captured two top Taliban commanders without a shot being fired in a secret dawn raid in Afghanistan.

The 12 elite troops seized Maulawi Rahman and Maulawi Mohammed at a high-walled compound north of the remote town of Babaji in Helmand province.

Both men, who surrendered without a fight, are said to have been close confidants of Osama Bin Laden, the terror mastermind killed by US Special Forces in Pakistan last month.

The two are also believed to have been behind many bomb attacks on British and US troops in Afghanistan.

Rahman and Mohammed – members of the Quetta Shura, the Taliban’s Pakistani-based high command – were held along with three henchmen, and 80kg of raw opium packed in bales with a street value of £128,000 was also seized.

The SAS soldiers, armed with M16 assault rifles and Heckler & Koch 9mm pistols, used steel-wire ladders to scale the walls of the Taliban compound while the terror leaders, along with a number of women and children, were asleep.

A source said: ‘Even though the SAS team was in full combat gear and armed to the teeth, they did not fire a shot and none was fired at them.

‘These are very significant arrests of two of the Taliban’s key commanders. They are at the top of the Taliban hierarchy and among their most senior figures.

‘Their detention is a damaging blow to the insurgents and will severely downgrade their ¬ability to direct operations in Afghanistan.’