A wanted senior Taliban commander has been killed in a U.S.-led air raid in the south of Afghanistan, the Afghan Defence Ministry said.

Mullah Brother was killed in the pre-dawn attack in Helmand province.

Brother served as a top military commander for the Taliban government until its removal from power in 2001.

He was also a member of the movement's leadership council, which is led by Mullah Mohammad Omar.

Tim Albone from The Times in London told CBC News that this is hugely positive news for the coalition and to British Forces who are based in Helmand. Albone, reporting from Kabul, said it was believed that Brother was orchestrating some of the fighting in the area.

Albone said the Taliban have recently lost many of their senior commanders.

"So this is really going to affect them both psychologically and will have an impact on their fighting capabilities," Albone said.

Meanwhile, unidentified assailants killed a NATO soldier and wounded two others in a routine patrol in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, the alliance said in a statement.

An Afghan interpreter working with the troops also was killed, the statement said. NATO did not provide the soldier's nationality or the circumstances that led to the deaths.

With files from the Associated Press