Pakistan holds suspected Taliban officials

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistani security forces have
arrested some suspected Taliban officials in a raid in
northwestern Pakistan bordering Afghanistan, police said on
Tuesday.

Pakistani newspaper reports quoted unnamed officials as
saying Mawlavi Abdul Kabir — a deputy of elusive Taliban chief
Mullah Mohammad Omar — was among those arrested, but senior
Pakistani officials said they were unable to confirm this.

Police said “a few” suspected Taliban officials were
arrested on Saturday night in a raid on an Afghan refugee camp
in Akora Khattack, a town around 100 km (60 miles) northwest of
the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

“A few people have been arrested who are suspected to be
Taliban but their identity has not yet been established,” a
senior police officer in Akora Khattack said, speaking on
condition of anonymity.

Pakistan’s Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao and
Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad, contacted by Reuters,
said they were unable to confirm that the group included Kabir.

The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press said unnamed
sources had confirmed Kabir’s arrest, but Taliban spokesman
Abdul Latif Hakimi denied it.

“I have also heard these reports,” the agency quoted Hakimi
as saying. “This morning I contacted friends and some relatives
of Mawlavi Abdul Kabir and all of them denied this.”

Hakimi said in April that Kabir was the head of the
Taliban’s political commission, which would make him the number
two to Mullah Omar.

In April, Kabir rejected as baseless reports that he had
held reconciliation talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s
government.

Kabir served as the Taliban’s top military commander in the
east of Afghanistan during the group’s rule until late 2001.

According to Afghan sources, he played a big role in
providing safe passage in 2001 for senior al Qaeda figures,
including Osama bin Laden, who had been trapped by U.S.-led
forces in the Tora Bora mountains after the Taliban’s fall.

U.S. and Afghan officials have often complained that a
large number of the Taliban have found sanctuary in Pakistan,
from where they plan and launch attacks inside Afghanistan.

Pakistan was the main backer of the Taliban, but officially
abandoned the Islamists after they refused to hand over bin
Laden after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Pakistan says it is doing all it can to stem the militants’
activity and has deployed thousands of troops along its long,
porous border with Afghanistan to prevent guerrilla movement.

The whereabouts of bin Laden and Omar remain unknown, but
U.S. officials have said they are believed to be hiding in the
rugged region on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.