operating out of Quetta, Pakistan. Others, including the Pakistani government, claimed he was operating near Kandahar, Afghanistan. In 2006, he claimed to have 12,000 men and to control 20 districts in the former Taliban heartland in the southern provinces of Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul and Orūzgān. Dadullah had reportedly been a central figure in the recruitment of Pakistani nationals to the Taliban and was also one of the main Taliban spokesmen, frequently meeting with Al-Jazeera television reporters. In the summer of 2006, he was reportedly sent by Omar to South Waziristan to convince local Pashtun insurgents to agree to a truce with Pakistan. In October 2006 it was rumored that the Afghan government was considering giving control of its defense ministry over to Dadullah as part of a reconciliation plan with the Taliban to stop the ongoing insurgency. Dadullah was linked to massacres of Shi'a, the scorched earth policy of Shi'a villages in 2001 (which he boasted about once on the radio), and the summary execution of men suspected of throwing hand grenades into his compound in 2001 (they were hanged at one of the main roundabouts). According to an interview he gave to the BBC, he had hundreds of suicide bombers waiting for his orders to launch an offensive against NATO troops. Dadullah oversaw Taliban negotiations for the hostage-taking of Italian reporter Daniele Mastrogiacomo and his two Afghan assistants in March 2007. Mastrogiacomo's driver was later beheaded. Mastrogiacomo was reportedly exchanged for five senior Taliban leaders, including Ustad Yasir, Abdul Latif Hakimi, Mansoor Ahmad, a brother of Dadullah, and two commanders identified as Hamdullah and Abdul Ghaffar. The Taliban threatened to kill the interpreter Ajmal Naqshbandi, one of the two Afghan assistants, on March 29, 2007, unless the Kabul government freed two Taliban prisoners. Ajmal was later beheaded after the Afghan government refused to free any more Taliban prisoners. According to Asadullah Khalid, the governor of Kandahar Province, "Mullah Dadullah was the backbone of the Taliban. He was a brutal and cruel commander who killed and beheaded Afghan civilians." Death Afghan officials reported on May 13, 2007, that Dadullah was killed the previous evening in Helmand Province in a raid by joint Afghan and NATO forces known to have included C Squadron, Special Boat Service (SBS), a British special forces unit, after he left his "sanctuary" for a meeting with fellow commanders, in southern Afghanistan. Some reports indicate Dadullah was