The leader of Pakistan's six-party Islamist alliance, Maulana Samiul Haq, on Thursday appealed to the Taliban to release Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo, who the militants have accused of spying for Britain. "International journalists have the right to interact with all groups including the Taliban," Samiul Haq said in an interview with Adnkronos International (AKI).The Pakistani political leader has been dubbed the "father of the Taliban" - a reference to the fact that top ranking Talibans, including their fugitive leader, Mullah Omar, once studied in an Islamic seminary run by Samiul Haq in the town of Akora Khattak in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) which borders Afghanistan.
Samiul Haq leads the six-party Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) which in the past has been highly critical of Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf because of his support for the United States' 'war against terrorism', including the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan which toppled the Taliban.
However, the MMA which is the ruling political group in the North West Frontier Province has recently softened its anti-Musharraf and anti-Washington stance. Bearing evidence of the MMA's more moderate approach was Maulana Samiul Haq's presence on Thursday at the farewell luncheon in honour of US ambassador Ryan C. Crocker who is leaving Pakistan to take up his new posting in Baghdad. At the lucheon the Chairman of Pakistan's Senate Foreign Relations Committee, jokingly adressed Samiul Haq as a "friendly fundamentalist" and "former terrorist".
Mastrogiacomo, a veteran war reporter for the Rome daily La Repubblica, was allegedly kidnapped by Taliban fighters together with two Afghan nationals, Ajmal and Ghulam Haidar, while on an assignment in Kandahar, in the volatile southern Afghan province of Helmand. On Wednesday the Taliban released a recorded message - attributed to one of their leaders Mullah Dadullah - saying that Mastrogiacomo had confessed he is a spy working for the British.