Feb. 16 -- Afghanistan’s Taliban said its deputy leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, has been detained by U.S.-led forces in what may be the most significant capture of the eight-year war.
Baradar, who has directed daily operations of the insurgent movement, was seized last week in Karachi by Pakistani and U.S. intelligence teams, the New York Times reported earlier. One of his senior commanders in southern Afghanistan, Akhtar Mohammad, disputed part of that account, saying by phone that Baradar was taken during weekend fighting in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province.
Baradar has been in Pakistani custody for several days undergoing joint interrogation, the Times said, citing unnamed American government officials.
Another Taliban commander, Abdul Qayum, said Baradar “was captured by foreign troops on Sunday, along with some of his bodyguards, during the operation in Marjah,” a town in Helmand attacked by U.S. Marines on Feb. 13. Qayum also spoke by phone from an unspecified place in Afghanistan.
Baradar is the deputy leader of the “Quetta shura,” the top council of Taliban leaders, which analysts and U.S. officials say fled into hiding near the Pakistani border city of Quetta after being driven from Afghanistan in 2002. Pakistan denies that the Taliban leadership operates on its territory.
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