Pakistan arrests scores of Taliban in crackdown

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistan arrested about 52
Taliban militants in raids overnight in the southwest province
of Baluchistan, taking action that Afghanistan, the United
States and NATO powers have long called for.

“They are Taliban, and they have links with those living in
Afghanistan. They had no documents so we will hand them over to
the Afghan authorities,” Chaudhary Mohammad Yaqub,
Baluchistan’s police chief, told Reuters on Tuesday.

A total 150 Afghans had been arrested during an operation
in the past two days, but many of those picked up were held for
not possessing proper identity papers, Yaqub said.

The Afghan government, the United States and NATO powers
with forces in Afghanistan all want Pakistan to act more
forcefully against the Taliban, particularly in the Baluch
capital Quetta where many settled after they were ousted from
power in 2001.

Among those detained in raids in Quetta on Monday evening
was Mullah Hamdullah, a former commander of Taliban forces in
the southern Afghan province of Helmand, where British troops
have met fierce resistance since their deployment a few months
ago.

Arrests of Taliban in Pakistan have been relatively rare,
leading to accusations that while the government has
aggressively hunted al Qaeda remnants, particularly in the
tribal regions of north and south Waziristan, it has been soft
on the Taliban.

President Pervez Musharraf’s government had backed the
Taliban prior to 2001.

President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have
spoken to Musharraf in the past few months about the need to do
more to help quell the insurgency in the southern Afghan
provinces.

A war of words had broken out earlier this year over what
Afghanistan calls Pakistan’s inaction. Pakistan countered by
saying Afghan intelligence was out of date, and a rising
insurgency was being fueled from within Afghanistan.

The Baluch police chief said the operation in the past two
days was principally aimed at catching Afghans illegally living
in Pakistan. He said Taliban would have no protection.

“It is a continuing process and anybody who has links with
the Taliban, we will nab them,” Yaqub said.

Pakistan’s past failures to follow through in the campaign
against the Taliban has led to Afghan suspicions that it is
letting the movement thrive in case it needs them to exert
influence over its western neighbor at some point in the
future.

Another reason for Pakistani hesitancy in tackling the
Taliban could be fear of igniting sentiments among the millions
of ethic Pashtuns living in the border areas because the
Taliban are mainly Pashtuns.

Pakistan is also fighting a revolt led by powerful ethnic
Baluch tribal chieftains, and would be wary of risking further
instability in its mineral-rich western province, analysts say.