19/01/2007
Azhar Masood & Agencies
ISLAMABAD, 19 January 2007 — Balochistan Police arrested hundreds of Taleban suspects in Quetta in a fresh crackdown on militants in the province, sources said yesterday. The sweep netted some 400 suspects who had reportedly crossed into Pakistan from Afghanistan.
Pakistani police and intelligence personnel had been monitoring the movement of Afghan nationals who cross into the country. Those without proper documents are detained as per the new border control measures. “Those arrested in the raids crossed into Balochistan without documents and some of them were armed,” police said. “The arrests were not made in a day but over a period of time and many of them were Teleban suspects,” an official told Arab News yesterday.
In another operation in Khyber Agency security forces arrested four suspects including a Uzbek woman. Political authorities have only confirmed arrests of these people but gave no further details of the latest action.
Pakistan yesterday also rejected as absurd a claim from a Taleban spokesman arrested in Afghanistan that the Taleban’s fugitive leader, Mullah Omar, was living in Pakistan under the protection of its main spy agency.
The claim from the captured Taleban spokesman Mohammad Hanif, who was also an aide to Omar, appeared to be the first time a Taleban member had said Omar was in Pakistan, and not leading the insurgency in Afghanistan.
The Afghan government said on Tuesday authorities had arrested Hanif along with two other men the previous day after they crossed into Afghanistan from Pakistan.
In a video recording of part of his interrogation released by Afghan authorities, Hanif said Omar was living in the Pakistani city Quetta under the protection of the ISI. He also said former ISI chief Hamid Gul was organizing the training of suicide bombers at a madrasa in Pakistan.
“This is as absolutely absurd and ridiculous a statement that one could have,” said Pakistani military spokesman Shaukat Sultan. “It appears that it has been given under coercion and we outrightly reject it,” he said of Hanif’s video testimony.
He said Afghanistan should have provided evidence to Pakistani authorities.
Gul, ISI chief during the 1980s when the agency helped organize Afghan opposition to the Soviet invasion of their country, also dismissed Hanif’s statement. “This is absolutely nonsense,” Gul told Reuters.
“The same thing appeared some time back in the New York Times, my name was mentioned. It’s a rehash of the same story.” “I don’t know who he is,” he said, referring to Hanif. “It’s totally wrong.”
SOURCE: Arab News |
