Long haul fight to defeat the Taleban

THE MOST WANTED TALEBAN
Taleban fighters
Mullah Mohammed Omar: The spiritual leader of the Taleban - a reclusive man currently thought to be in Pakistan.
Mullah Berader: The commander who has probably taken over from captured former Taleban Defence Minister Mullah Obaidullah.
Akhtar Mohammad Mansour: A Taleban commander responsible for military operations in Kandahar, but based in Quetta.
Abdul Rahim: The Taleban's "shadow governor" in Helmand and a key figure in the insurgency.
Qari Faiz Mohammad: Chairman of the Taleban military council and a major financier with close links to Mullah Omar.
Mullah Mahmood Baluch: Active in Helmand and with links to smugglers, he may have been killed recently.
Naim Bareech: a man known to have links with Taleban command structures.
Dadullah Mansour: Mullah Dadullah's brother who is believed to be running southern military operations.
Corro Alistair Leithead makes the point that while taking out Taliban leaders is a good thing, it's not enough to defeat the insurgency:

There are few incentives to give up the insurgency and his (Mullah Salam Zaeef, the former Taleban ambassador to Pakistan ) definition of what the Taleban are makes for concerning reading for Western forces.

"The Taleban is not one, they are not two, they are not hundred, they are not thousand, they are not tens of thousands, the Taleban have millions in this country," said Mullah Zaeef.

"The foreigners want to kill them all or to vanish them, but we do not want Taleban to be killed, we are feeling sadness because they are our brothers, and this is not acceptable to us."

So much for reconciliation. This is an insurgency with a life of its own now. While targeting commanders helps, persuading the people to drive the more extremist Taleban leaders out is the only way this insurgency can be beaten.

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Iraqi tactics come to Afghanistan
 
An excerpt:

The Taleban appear to be copying tactics from Iraq - becoming more deadly.

In the propaganda film masked men prepare a homemade bomb the size of a football. It is crude, but lethal - powerful enough to blow apart an armoured vehicle.

Instead of confronting America's firepower head on, the Taleban are attacking more exposed targets, like unarmoured vehicles belonging to the Afghan army, police stations, government buildings.