Pakistanis arrest Taliban spokesman Hakimi

By Robert Birsel

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – The main spokesman for Afghanistan’s
Taliban insurgents, Abdul Latif Hakimi, was arrested in
Pakistan on Tuesday, the Pakistani government said.

“He was arrested a few hours ago. Intelligence agencies
worked on a tip-off. More details will come later,” Interior
Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao told Reuters.

Hakimi has been the main spokesman for the Taliban, who
were ousted by U.S.-led forces in 2001.

He was frequently in touch with reporters, speaking by
satellite telephone from an undisclosed location, although
Afghan and U.S. officials have long suspected he was in
Pakistan.

In June, the former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay
Khalilzad, publicly questioned Pakistan’s inability to find him
and other Taliban figures.

Hakimi 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, very accurate.

Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said
Hakimi was arrested in Baluchistan province, which borders
Afghanistan.

“We’re interrogating him and we expect to get some
important information from him,” he said.

Asked if Hakimi would be handed over to the United States,
as have other Taliban and al Qaeda militants arrested in
Pakistan, Ahmed said: “First we will interrogate him and then
we will see.”

An official in Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s office
welcomed the news.

“We are grateful for his arrest. Hakimi was someone who
claimed the deaths of innocent people,” Khaliq Ahmad said. “We
hope that his arrest leads to more arrests.”

He could not say whether Afghanistan would request that he
be handed over to Afghan custody. A U.S. military spokesman in
the Afghan capital, Kabul, said he had no immediate comment.

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 with government troops.

“They’re lying,” Hakimi said. “We were the attackers and we
killed 11 Afghan soldiers. Only three Taliban were injured.”

The Afghan Defense Ministry said eight government troops
had been wounded.

“PROBLEMS NOT SOLVED BY PEACE”

Hakimi frequently vowed unending jihad, or holy war,
against U.S. and government forces and angrily rejected
suggestions of reconciliation.

Late last year, responding to a U.S. call for the Taliban
to lay down their arms, he said peace would not resolve
Afghanistan’s problems.

“They are the criminals for destroying our homeland,” he
said of the United States.

“Our problems will not be solved through peace. None of the
mujahideen (holy warriors) will compromise with them and the
mujahideen are standing against the enemies.

“The door of reconciliation and peace is not open to us,”
he said. “This is just a deception.”

Hakimi’s telephone was switched off on Tuesday.

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

Zaeef became Taliban spokesman after the September 11
attacks and held regular news conferences at which he tried to
convince the world the Taliban’s guest, Osama bin Laden, was
not responsible.

Zaeef was arrested in Pakistan in early 2002 and handed
over to U.S. authorities. Hakimi had welcomed his release and
expressed hoped that more prisoners would be set free.

(Additional reporting by Zeeshan Haider and Aamir Ashraf in
Islamabad, Sayed Salahuddin in Kabul)