Taliban's top military commander captured

[HerbieHeadley]

Excite News - Taliban's top military commander captured

The Taliban's top military commander has been arrested in a joint CIA-Pakistani operation in Pakistan in a major victory against the insurgents as U.S. troops push into their heartland in southern Afghanistan, officials said Tuesday.

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the group's No. 2 leader behind Afghan Taliban founder Mullah Mohammad Omar and a close associate of Osama bin Laden, was captured in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi, two Pakistani intelligence officers and a senior U.S. official said.

"If Pakistani officials had wanted to arrest him, they could have done it at any time," said Sher Mohammad Akhud Zada, the former governor of Afghanistan's Helmand province and a member of the Afghan parliament. "Why did they arrest him now?

"We totally deny this rumor. He has not been arrested," Zabiullah Mujahid told the AP by telephone. He said the report was Western propaganda aimed at undercutting the Taliban fighting against an offensive in the southern Afghan town of Marjah, a Taliban haven.

"Our basic problem with the Americans is that they have attacked our country," Baradar said. "They are offering talks, hoping that the mujahedeen surrender before them. We see no benefit for the country and Islam in such kind of talks."

The Times said it learned of the operation against Baradar last Thursday but delayed reporting it at the request of White House officials who argued that publicizing it would end a valuable intelligence-gathering effort by making Baradar's associates aware of his capture. The newspaper said it decided to publish the news after White House officials acknowledged Baradar's capture was becoming widely known in the region.

ABC is portraying it as the highest level capture ever; however, the Obama administration is not talking of the details.

"His capture represents a significant success for the administration of President Barack Obama, which has vowed to kill or seize Taliban and al-Qaida leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

I'm for victory.

But don't tell Pelosi or Obama that
Word of Baradar's capture came as U.S. Marine and Afghan units pressed deeper into Marjah, facing sporadic rocket and mortar fire as they moved through suspected insurgent neighborhoods in the NATO offensive to reclaim the town.

They didn't raise their weapons before Baradar did, I hope.
Better not be any fat lips.

After denying for years that Afghan Taliban were based in the country, the Pakistani government and security agencies had little reason to publicize the arrest of Baradar, which was first reported by The New York Times.

One Pakistani officer said Baradar was arrested 10 days ago with the assistance of the United States and "was talking" to his interrogators.


Wonder if he’s been read his miranda rights yet?
Pakistan has been leading the interrogation of Baradar, but Americans were also involved, it said.

Oh noes!

 

[Wayte]

Well sweet. If this keeps up, we should be outta there....well, soon hopefully.

 

[BobW188]

Given that the action is, and has for some time been, in southern Afghanistan, one wonders what urgent business this "top military commander" had across the border in Karachi; and one wonders if his troops aren't just as happy to have him out of the picture.
Some incredibly dizzy incompetents have been "top military commanders." Witness, in our civil war, Halleck of the North and - after losing all of Tennessee - Bragg, who briefly (and only nominally) outranked Lee.
If the coming weeks see a marked diminishment of the Taliban's ability to stay on the battlefield and to resist effectively, I'll give a lot more credence to this. As it is, I suspect that this is a case of getting someone with a high-sounding title as far away from the battlefield as possible, so that the fighting troops have a chance and, perhaps at the same time, saddling us with an essentially useless mouth to feed. It may well turn out that the best thing we can do for our forces is to give him back.

 

[Nathan Poe]

Now all we got to do is capture the guy who's going to replace him.

Once we do that, then all we got to do is capture the guy who will replace him...

Once we do that...

 

[DaisyDay]

Given that the action is, and has for some time been, in southern Afghanistan, one wonders what urgent business this "top military commander" had across the border in Karachi; and one wonders if his troops aren't just as happy to have him out of the picture.

That particular border is barely recognized by the Taliban. They've been very active in southern Pakistan for a long while now which, considering Pakistan has nukes, is particularly worrisome.

And Taliban =/= al Qaeda.