Hakeemi says Omar hiding in Afghanistan 06.10.2005 A detained Taleban spokesman has told Pakistani interrogators that the militia’s fugitive chief, Mullah Mohammed Omar, is hiding in Afghanistan and remains in contact with top commanders, an intelligence official said yesterday. Abdul Latif Hakeemi, who has often claimed responsibility on behalf of the Taleban for attacks on US-led coalition forces, was arrested in Balochistan province, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said. Hakeemi was not a prominent figure in the Taleban while the militia was in power in Afghanistan, only becoming a media contact after the ouster of the movement in a US-led war in 2001. His exact ties to the Taleban leadership are unclear. “So far, he has told interrogators that Mullah Omar is alive, he is in Afghanistan and he remains in contact with senior aides by satellite phone,” said the intelligence official, who was involved in the raid to arrest Hakeemi in Quetta. The official declined to be named because of the secretive nature of his job. Some Pakistani officials said Hakeemi was arrested on Tuesday, but the intelligence official said he was detained on Sunday at a home in Quetta’s Newi Killi neighbourhood. Hakeemi’s arrest was not announced because he was being interrogated about other Taleban leaders, the official said. Four ‘low-level’ aides of Hakeemi were arrested from several other homes in Newi Killi, the official said. Intelligence agents seized two satellite phones, two Pakistani mobile phones, Taleban literature, audio cassettes and CDs containing films of Taleban operations, he said. Pakistani officials described Hakeemi as a Taleban spokesman. But information from Hakeemi in the past has sometimes proven exaggerated or untrue. Afghan and US military officials say he is believed to speak for factions of the rebel group. The United States and Afghanistan welcomed Hakeemi’s arrest but there has been no word on whether Washington would seek his custody. “We are grateful to the country of Pakistan for their successful capture of Abdul Latif Hakeemi,” said Colonel Jim Yonts, a US military spokesman in the Afghan capital. Afghanistan welcomed Hakeemi’s arrest. Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have sometimes been strained because of Afghan suspicions that rebels are using Pakistan as a staging area for cross-border attacks. Pakistan denies it. Rebels are active in the volatile south and east of Afghanistan, and have stepped up attacks this year. More than 1,300 people, including hundreds of militants, have died in the past seven months. Pakistan was once a supporter of the Taleban, but withdrew its support and became a chief ally of the US-led coalition forces that ousted the militia, which refused to hand over Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States. << | >> |
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