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Afghanistan
Obaidullah's 'arrest' won't stop offensive
2007-03-03
PakistanÂ’s reported capture of the former Taliban defence minister boosts its anti-terror credentials and delivers a setback to the insurgent movement, but is unlikely to curb another wave of militant violence this year, said analysts on Friday.

Intelligence officials say Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, one of the two top deputies of Taliban supreme leader Mulla Omar, was arrested in Quetta on Monday, the highest-ranking Afghan militant to be captured since the fall of the hardline regime in 2001. The arrest – yet to be formally announced by the Pakistani government – came on the same day US Vice President Dick Cheney made a swift visit to Islamabad to express concern over Al Qaeda regrouping along the border and a feared Taliban spring offensive in Afghanistan.

“There is no truth in the report. I have told you, I have talked to him. He is in Afghanistan.”
Some doubt remained over whether Akhund was indeed arrested. With neither NATO nor Pakistan officially confirming his capture, the Taliban media machine dismissed it as a “rumour”. A militant spokesman claimed to have spoken with Akhund over the telephone on Friday. “There is no truth in the report. I have told you, I have talked to him. He is in Afghanistan,” Qari Yousuf Ahmadi told AP by satellite phone from an undisclosed location. In December, the Taliban issued a similar initial denial of the killing of another top Omar lieutenant, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani, who was later confirmed to have died in a NATO airstrike.
Posted by:Fred

#3  Mods - Cleanup on aisle #asshole3, please!
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut   2007-03-03 19:50  

#2  it doesn't count, Perv, until we get our hands on him. Remember, "no Taliban are in Pakistan", except when they are....
Posted by: Frank G   2007-03-03 09:17  

#1  "spoken with Akhund over the telephone on Friday."

Or at least spoke with someone who called using the speed dialer on Akhund's cell phone.
Posted by: Glenmore   2007-03-03 07:24  

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