11-year-old Afghan boy, hailed as hero for fighting Taliban, killed by militants

An 11-year-old Afghan boy who had been praised for his bravery in leading security forces in battle against the Taliban was killed by the militants this week, Afghan authorities said.

Wasil Ahmad had commanded a police unit for 43 days as it fought to repel a deadly 71-day Taliban siege last year, according to his uncle Mullah Samad, an Afghan Local Police commander in the Khas Uruzgan district of Uruzgan province.

Gunmen on motorbikes shot the boy in the head Monday at a market in Tarin Kowt, the provincial capital of Uruzgan province, said Dost Mohammad Nayab, spokesman for the province's governor.

Wasil was taken to a local hospital, then transferred to a better-equipped hospital in Kandahar, where he died of his injuries, Nayab said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the killing on its website Monday.

He said Wasil, who lost his father in fighting with the Taliban, had asked him more than a year ago how to use machine guns.

"I asked him why did he want to learn. He told me that he wanted to take revenge from those (who) had killed his father," Samad said.

Samad said he trained the boy in the use of AK-47 and PK machine guns, rockets and mortars as well as satellite phones and VHF radios.

"He was a very intelligent boy; he quickly learned all of them," he said.

Last summer, the area under the uncle's control came under Taliban siege, and Samad and some of his men were injured in an attack.

"That was when Wasil claimed the command of my men," Samad recalled, saying the boy would position himself on the roof of the family home firing his machine gun from morning to night.

"There were days that he fired up to 3,000 bullets," he said, adding that Wasil had killed a number of Taliban fighters.

"He commanded my men for 43 days in total, and at the end, we broke the siege. We were only 75 people but were fighting hundreds of Taliban."

Samad had been a Taliban commander before but switched sides in 2012 to fight for the Afghan government, he told CNN.

His brother, Wasil's father, had also been a Taliban fighter and switched sides at the same time. The Taliban killed him a year later, Samad said.

'He was very talented'

In late summer, the siege finally ended, and Samad and 35 of his forces and family members -- including Wasil -- were airlifted to Tarin Kowt, according to Samad and Nayab.