Afghan Taliban Chief's Capture Shows Pakistan May Get Tougher
Feb. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistan’s capture of the top Afghan Taliban commander shows that its military may be ceding to U.S. pressure for tougher action against the guerrillas, even if it isn’t prepared to do all that the Americans are demanding.
The arrest of Abdul Ghani Baradar near Karachi is the biggest disruption of Taliban leadership since Pakistani and U.S. forces killed or captured three commanders in the six months before May 2007. Since then, Baradar has directed the insurgents’ daily operations as deputy to Mullah Omar, the movement’s spiritual leader.
“For the Taliban war effort, Baradar’s arrest is a blow,” said Michael Semple, a Harvard University researcher who served as the European Union’s top political officer in Afghanistan. For Pakistan’s main military intelligence service, “it’s a basis for some gold stars,” he said, showing a readiness to crack down on a movement the agency backed during the 1990s.
Baradar’s arrest may be linked to efforts by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to pursue reconciliation with at least some Taliban leaders, said Hassan Abbas of the Asia Society in New York and Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani author of books on the movement. Baradar has sent representatives to Saudi Arabia for cautious contacts with Karzai envoys, said Rashid and an Afghan diplomat who asked not to be named.
The capture of Baradar “might offer some way to advance that effort, or it may well put a stick in that wheel,” said Rashid, in a telephone interview from Washington. U.S. and Pakistani officers are interrogating Baradar, the New York Times reported, citing unidentified American officials.
Opening for Talks
Other Taliban officials might be persuaded that this is “their best opportunity for negotiation,” said Jeffrey Dressler of the Institute for the Study of War in Washington. Baradar “could perhaps use his influence with key commanders and individuals in exchange for some sort of beneficial treatment.”
Representative Michael McCaul of Texas, the ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee’s intelligence panel, said the detention of Baradar shows that Pakistani authorities “are getting more serious about cracking down on the Taliban.”
“There’s a good chance of obtaining useful intelligence because the Pakistani interrogation methods are more aggressive than our own,” he said in an e-mailed statement.
Two Pakistani security officials confirmed Baradar’s arrest by police near Karachi after it was reported yesterday by the Times, which said he was nabbed in the city by an ISI team accompanied by CIA operatives. U.S. officials say many other Taliban officials operate in Pakistan, which the government there denies.
Other Guerrillas
The arrest leaves open the question of how far Pakistan will crack down, said Abbas, a Pakistani security analyst. Pakistan hasn’t responded to U.S. requests that it attack the forces of Jalaluddin and Sirajuddin Haqqani, who fight in eastern Afghanistan, or Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whose guerrillas operate mainly in the northeast.
The Taliban commander’s arrest heightens U.S. pressure on the guerrillas as U.S.-led forces mount their biggest operation of the eight-year war, to assault Marjah, a Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, bordering Pakistan.
His detention could hamper insurgent operations for months as the movement tries to replace him, said Waheed Mujda, an Afghan analyst and former Taliban official.
Military Mastermind
“He is very important, the mastermind of their operations,” Mujda said in a phone interview from Kabul. Taliban administrators and commanders in the south and west take broad guidance from Baradar, although they are largely autonomous in daily operations, Mujda said.
Baradar is deputy head of the Taliban’s Leadership Council, often called the “Quetta shura” because analysts and U.S. officials say it has operated from near the Pakistani border city of Quetta since the Taliban were driven from power in Afghanistan in 2002.
His capture could provide information on the whereabouts of Omar, the one-eyed cleric who is the guerrillas’ spiritual leader. Omar’s “relative lack of operational experience” means that Taliban “day-to-day operations” are handled by Baradar, said a report last month by Dressler.
“Omar and Baradar have a close, longstanding relationship. Both fought side-by-side against the Soviets” in the 1980s, the report said.
Baradar comes from the same ethnic Pashtun tribe as President Karzai, said Taliban commander Akhtar Mohammad, who confirmed the detention.
Location Disputed
Mohammad disputed the account of Baradar’s capture inside Pakistan, saying he was taken during weekend fighting in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. Another Taliban official, Abdul Qayum, said he was captured by foreign troops on Feb. 14, “along with some of his bodyguards, during the operation in Marjah,” a farming hub under siege by U.S. Marines and Afghan troops. Both Taliban officials spoke by phone from unspecified places in Afghanistan.
Baradar’s rise showed that the Taliban have been able to rebound from the loss of top commanders, Mujda said. He became the operations chief after May 2007, when a former chief, Mullah Dadullah, was killed.
George Little, a Central Intelligence Agency spokesman, and Mike Hammer, a spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council, declined to comment on reports of the capture. President Barack Obama’s spokesman, Robert Gibbs, and the State Department deflected questions about the operation.