The battle in southern Afghanistan has led to a major defeat for the Taliban, with over a hundred enemy dead and several dozen captured. American AC-130 gunships, AH-64 Apache helicopter gunships, A-10 and Harrier ground attack  jets, combined with rapidly responding police and soldiers, trapped a large Taliban force in the open, or in caves from which there was no escape. The Taliban had a local government official working for them, and his disappearance was first thought to be a kidnapping. But it turns out that the traitorous official helped set up an ambush of local police. The two Taliban leaders who had organized that particular operation were believed among the dead, which are still being recovered.