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Pakistanis arrest Taliban spokesman Hakimi

Posted on: Tuesday, 4 October 2005, 10:07 CDT

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)

Source: REUTERS

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