South Asia News

Pakistan confirms arrest of Afghan Taliban military chief (3rd Lead)

Feb 16, 2010, 10:46 GMT

The top military commander of the Afghan Taliban was captured in Pakistan\'s southern port city of Karachi in a raid by US and Pakistani intelligence agents, officials confirmed Tuesday. EPA/JALIL REZAYEE

Islamabad - The top military commander of the Afghan Taliban was captured in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi in a raid by US and Pakistani intelligence agents, officials confirmed Tuesday.

Mullah Abdul Ghani Brader, chief of the Taliban military wing and second only to the movement's founder Mullah Muhammad Omar, was arrested several days ago, officials said.

'Yes, Mullah Brader was arrested in Karachi, we confirm that. At this moment he is in our custody and we are interrogating him,' a senior Pakistani military official told the German Press Agency dpa.

'In the hierarchy of Afghan Taliban leadership, he is number two,' said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

He refused to provide further details about the capture and the interrogations.

The Taliban denied Brader's arrest, claiming reports about the mullah's arrest were western propaganda. 'Mullah Brader is in Afghanistan,' Taliban spokesman Saibullah Mudjahid told dpa.

'He is well and in charge of the operation in Afghanistan. This is a trick of the foreigners,' he added.

Taliban fighters were sucessfully resisting the offensive by NATO and Afghan government troops in the southern province of Helmand, Mudjahid added. Reports of Brader's arrest were only aimed at 'demoralizing our fighters,' he said.

The New York Times, which first reported Brader's arrest late Monday, said US and Pakistani intelligence agents were jointly questioning the militant leader.

The Times said that it had held the story since Thursday at the request of the White House, to protect intelligence-gathering after the raid.

Brader is the highest-ranking Taliban leader to be caught since 2001, when the US-led forces invaded Afghanistan and ousted the Taliban regime.

Rahimullah Yousafzai, who has reported the conflict on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border for several years, said Mullah Brader's arrest would be a setback to the Afghan Taliban.

'It will hurt the morale of Taliban, but we have seen over the years that the loss of a leader does not affect the overall Taliban movement,' Yousafzai said.

'They keep ready the replacements for their commanders and leaders, and we will soon see some other guy taking over his place.'

Interpol said the military commander, who belongs to the Afghan Popalzai tribe, has been a member of the Taliban's so-called Quetta Shura (council) since May 2007.

Quetta is the capital of Pakistan's south-western province of Baluchistan, which borders the Afghan provinces of Kandahar and Helmand. Afghan and US officials have long suspected that Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar and his deputies operate from Baluchistan.

Media reports recently cited US officials as saying that some Taliban leaders have moved from Quetta to Karachi, Pakistan's largest city with a population of around 15 million.

Brader, 42, also served as a deputy defence minister for the Taliban regime in Afghanistan which was ousted by a US-led coalition following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in 2001.