The senior Taliban leadership has been heavily attrited over the past year. Four members of the Taliban Shura Majlis, or executive council, have been killed or captured since December 2006. Mullah Berader was killed in an airstrike in August 2007. Mullah Dadullah Ahkund was a member of the Shura Majlis. Mullah Obaidullah Akhund was arrested in Pakistan in January 2007. He has since been released by the Pakistanis in exchange for hundreds of their captured soldiers. Mullah Akhtar Usmani was killed in an airstrike in Helmand province in December 2006.

Qari Faiz Mohammad, a member of the Taliban's military shura, was killed in a raid in Helmand province in July 2007. Afghan forces also captured Taliban spokesman Dr. Muhammad Hanif in January 2007. He was later released in an exchange for an Italian hostage. In June 2007, NATO forces killed Mullah Mahmud Baluch, a senior Taliban commander in Helmand and Nimruz provinces.