Pakistanis grill Taliban official on militant links

By Zeeshan Haider

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistani investigators were grilling
the Taliban’s top spokesman on Wednesday, hoping to uncover his
links with militant leaders and determine how he was operating
in Pakistan, government and security officials said.

Pakistani security forces arrested Abdul Latif Hakimi in
the southwestern province of Baluchistan on Tuesday.

He was detained with five other suspected Taliban members
in a raid on a house on the outskirts of Quetta, capital of
Baluchistan, an intelligence official said. A satellite phone,
two mobile phones and a fax machine were seized in the raid.

“He was using the fax machine to send messages from Mullah
Omar and statements on Taliban activities to newspapers in
Pakistan and other countries,” said an intelligence official
who declined to be identified.

Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar has been in hiding
since U.S.-led forces ousted his government in late 2001 for
refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden, architect of the
September 11 attacks.

Hakimi had said in the past he had no idea of the
whereabouts of bin Laden.

“We’re interrogating him for his links with the Taliban
high-ups and how was he operating in Pakistan,” the Pakistani
official said.

Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed
described Hakimi’s arrest as a big catch and said he hoped
Hakimi would disclose information about Taliban leaders.

Pakistan would question Hakimi before deciding whether to
hand him over to the United States, Ahmed said. Many al Qaeda
and Taliban members arrested in Pakistan since 2001 have been
turned over to U.S. authorities.

“SIGNIFICANT, SYMBOLIC CAPTURE”

The United States and Afghanistan welcomed Hakimi’s arrest
but there has been no word on whether Washington would seek his
custody.

“We are grateful to the country of Pakistan for their
successful capture of Abdul Latif Hakimi,” said Colonel Jim
Yonts, a U.S. military spokesman in the Afghan capital.

Khaliq Ahmad, an official in Afghan President Hamid
Karzai’s office, said he hoped Hakimi’s arrest would lead to
more.

In Washington, a U.S. official who spoke on condition of
anonymity called the arrest “a significant, symbolic capture.”

However, he said it was not clear what impact Hakimi’s
arrest would have on Taliban operations.

Hakimi, the main spokesman for the Taliban in recent years,
was frequently in touch with reporters, speaking by satellite
telephone from an undisclosed location, although Afghan and
U.S. officials long suspected he was in Pakistan.

Hakimi used to vow unending jihad, or holy war, on foreign
troops and often made outlandish claims on behalf of Taliban
fighters, saying they had inflicted huge casualties on U.S. and
Afghan government troops.

But his information was also, at times, accurate.

Hakimi last called Reuters on Monday at around 4 p.m. (1100
GMT) to deny an Afghan government report that 31 Taliban
insurgents had been killed in fighting.

His arrest comes less than a month after a previous Taliban
spokesman, former ambassador to Pakistan Mullah Abdul Salam
Zaeef, was freed from a U.S. military prison in Cuba under an
Afghan government reconciliation program.

Hakimi had welcomed Zaeef’s release and said he hoped there
would be more.