Mullah Omar's close relative nabbed in Karachi

[hembo]

Mullah Omar's close relative nabbed in Karachi
Thu, Mar 4 04:35 PM

Karachi, Mar.4 (ANI): Pakistani security agencies have claimed another prized catch as they reportedly nabbed the son-in-law of Afghan Taliban's supreme commander Mullah Omar here on Thursday.

According to sources, Motasim Agha Jan was arrested during a raid on a house in the Ehsan Abad area of the city.

Two close aides of Jan were also arrested during the raid, The Nation reports.

All the three persons were later shifted to an undisclosed location for further interrogation.

Several top extremist leaders have been nabbed in Karachi in the recent past, which suggests that the port city has become a favourite hiding place for the fleeing militants.

Last month, the Afghan Taliban's second in-command Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar was nabbed in Karachi in a joint operation conducted by US and Pakistani officials.

According to a British intelligence official, Karachi's distance from the Afghan border makes it a perfect hideout for the extremist leaders like Mullah Omar, the Taliban chief, who is also believed to be hiding in the Pakistan's financial capital.

Karachi, Pakistan's largest city is home to over 18 million people. The population includes about 2.5 million Pashtuns, the largest Pashtun population in the country outside the North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

Mayor of the city Syed Mustafa Kamal termed Karachi as Taliban's "revenue engine", as the insurgents are involved in organised crimes such as kidnapping, robbery and drug trafficking.

Kamal also pointed out that the Taliban would never intensify violence in the city in order to safeguard its 'supply lines'.

 

[Hulk]

So what US was telling all this while was true, that most of the AQ AT leadership is in Pakistan.

 

[H2O3C4Nitrogen]

Pakistan: Another Taliban leader captured

By MUNIR AHMAD (AP) – 1 hour ago

ISLAMABAD — Pakistani intelligence officials say have arrested another Afghan Taliban leader.

The arrest of Agha Jan Mohtasim is the latest step in an apparent crackdown against a movement that has long enjoyed relative safe haven in Pakistan.

The officials said Thursday that Mohtasim was arrested in the southern city of Karachi, but did not say when. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to give their name to the media.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

KHAR, Pakistan (AP) — Dozens of militants armed with assault rifles attacked a security checkpoint in Pakistan's volatile northwest, sparking a gunbattle that left 30 insurgents and one soldier dead, officials said Thursday.

The battle occurred overnight in the Chamarkand area of the Mohmand tribal region near the Afghan border, said government and military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Chamarkand borders the Bajur tribal region, where the army said Tuesday it had finally defeated Taliban and al-Qaida militants after more than a year and a half of fighting. The army made a similar declaration of victory in Bajur a year ago only to see violence continue, and officials acknowledged some of the insurgents may have fled to other areas.

It was unclear if the militants involved in the checkpoint attack came from Bajur.

A similar dynamic occurred when the army staged a massive ground offensive last year in the South Waziristan tribal area, the main stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban. Many of the militants fled to North Waziristan and other areas of the northwest, leading a wave retaliatory attacks that killed more than 600 people.

But there have been relatively few attacks in recent weeks, a possible sign the military's continued offensive against the militants is having some success.

Maj. Gen. Tariq Khan, commander of the paramilitary Frontier Corps who announced the army had wrapped up military operations in Bajur, said other offensives will be staged in the tribal region where militants have fled, including Orakzai and Kurram.

Washington has praised Pakistan for its recent military operations but wants the government to do even more to target militants using its territory to stage cross-border attacks against U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan.

Pakistan has also suffered many attacks far from the militants' main sanctuary in the northwest.

A suicide bomber accidentally detonated his explosives outside a shop in central Pakistan on Thursday, killing himself but causing no other injuries, said police official Manzoor Sarwar. The incident occurred in Muzaffargarh, a small city in Punjab province.

Also in Punjab, robbers kidnapped a 5-year-old British boy from a house in Jhelum city, George Sherriff, the press attache at the British High Commission in Islamabad, said Thursday.

"The kidnappers held the family at gunpoint overnight and left with household possessions as well as taking the boy with them," Sherriff said. The family had been scheduled to return to Britain on Thursday.

The boy's father, Raja Naqqash Saeed, told Sky News that the kidnappers have demanded 100,000 British pounds ($150,000) for the boy's return.

"I told them I don't have that much money ... I can't afford that," Saeed said.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hkiMxbHNH0BqgpWA2ZG6VD6wVTmAD9E80BTO0

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

So what US was telling all this while was true, that most of the AQ AT leadership is in Pakistan.

Not necessarily - there has been a huge shift in the situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

In Pakistan, military offensives in Swat, Waziristan, Bajaur and elsewhere have decimated the TTP and allied groups and largely eliminated the presence of territories under their control.

In Afghanistan, the surge in US and NATO troops along with increased military operations has further denied space to the Taliban there.

The recent arrests may be the result of the pressures being applied in both nations that are forcing the Taliban leadership to shift into Pakistan or perhaps shift from the Afghan-Pak border regions further into Pakistan and the larger cities, especially Karachi which has a huge Pashtun population they could blend into.

 

[fawwaxs]

KARACHI: The Crime Investigation Department (CID) of Sindh police claimed on Thursday to have arrested a key figure of the outlawed Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan.

A CID official identified the man as Alam Mehsud and said he was a close aide of TTP leader Baitullah Mehsud who was killed in a US drone attack in August last year. The arrest was made on a tip-off from Surjani Town area of Karachi.
“He escaped the military operation in South Waziristan and came to Karachi a few months ago,” the official said, adding that Alam had been appointed Qazi by the TTP in an area of South Waziristan.

The official said that investigations were in early stages, adding that information received during interrogation would help police to trace Alam Mehsud’s associates living in the city.

“Recent arrests are results of enhanced intelligence network and better coordination among law-enforcement agencies,” he said.

The CID official, however, did not say if any arms and ammunition had been recovered from Alam Mehsud.

DAWN.COM | National | Key Taliban figure held in Karachi

 

[fawwaxs]

Pakistan steps up anti-Taliban efforts

WASHINGTON — U.S. pressure on Pakistan to crack down on Taliban extremists within its borders is paying off, American officials and independent analysts say, paving the way for progress in the war in neighboring Afghanistan.

Pakistan's cooperation marks a shift after years of tolerating the presence of homegrown extremists operating openly in the country. The government recently has pressed an offensive in tribal areas home to al-Qaeda, has arrested major Taliban figures and has signed off on airstrikes by pilotless drones that have killed important terrorist suspects.

In recent months:

•Pakistan on Thursday announced the arrest of the Taliban's former finance minister, days after saying it killed about 75 militants and discovered a network of 156 caves used by the Taliban near the Afghan border.

•After downplaying for years the presence of extremist leaders in Pakistani cities, the government last month arrested a number of key Taliban figures, including Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Afghan Taliban's second in command.

•U.S. drone strikes have increased to 53 in Pakistan in 2009 from 36 in 2008 and five in 2007, according to statistics compiled by the Long War Journal website. An August strike killed Baitullah Mehsud, a major Taliban leader.

Although Pakistan's government hasn't done everything the United States has wanted, these developments are "all having an effect," said Richard Holbrooke, the State Department's special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan. "I think that in Pakistan and in Afghanistan, but particularly in Pakistan, there's been a movement, a shift in sentiment here."

Holbrooke said he avoided phrases such as "light at the end of the tunnel," an axiom U.S. officials used often while he was a U.S. aid worker and diplomat during the Vietnam War. However, he said Pakistan's moves against the Taliban and the ongoing U.S. offensive in Afghanistan are pressuring some Taliban figures to consider peace talks.

"This is a very important sequence of events, and we hope it will continue," Holbrooke said.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said it will be difficult to prevail in Afghanistan as long as the Taliban and al-Qaeda have save haven in the mountainous region along he Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has warned of the "existential threat" that extremists pose to the Pakistani state, which has nuclear weapons.

Since taking office last year, the Obama administration has both pressured and encouraged the Pakistanis to go after violent extremists operating on their side of the border. Shortly after taking office, President Obama picked Holbrooke, a former ambassador to the United Nations, to lead a new approach to the region.

In April 2009, when Pakistan stood by as Taliban gunmen captured several towns, Clinton publicly chastised the government, saying it was "basically abdicating to the Taliban." A military offensive soon followed.

The administration and Congress passed a $7.5 billion package of military and civilian aid for the country, and has agreed to provide sophisticated equipment, including night-vision goggles, small aerial drones and smart bombs, to Pakistan's military.

There remains concern that Pakistan is playing a "double game" of supporting extremists behind the United States' back, said Daniel Markey, a South Asia expert at the Council on Foreign Relations and a State Department official during the Bush administration. Still, he said, "we are seeing things now that we had, in previous years, only hoped for."

The arrest of Mullah Baradar and other Taliban leaders was particularly significant, said Bruce Riedel, a terrorism expert at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center who last year advised Obama on Afghanistan and Pakistan strategy but does not work for the administration. "He is a big fish. This is something the United States has been pressing Pakistan to do since the Bush administration." Pakistan always claimed there were no Taliban leaders in their country, Riedel said.

Still, many in Afghanistan and elsewhere suspect that Pakistan's recent steps are window dressing, and may in fact be designed to undermine potential peace talks with the Taliban, said Shuja Nawaz, an analyst with the Atlantic Council.

One test, he and other analysts say, is whether Pakistan cracks down on its extremists within its borders who have not threatened the Pakistani state, such as the North Waziristan network led by Jalaluddin Haqqani, which has been blamed for terrorist bombings in Afghanistan.

"The Haqqani network is one of the most deadly organizations, especially for U.S. troops," said retired Lt. Gen. David Barno, a Pakistan expert at the National Defense University. "A more robust effort to target them would be a very positive signal."
Pakistan steps up anti-Taliban efforts - USATODAY.com

 

[Spring Onion]

Osama's son had married a foreigner/westerner so what he has to do with activities of his father??? Many Afghans are scared through out Pakistan so what if they are relatives of Mullah Omar, does it make them guilty or militants

 

[Justin Joseph]

Osama's son had married a foreigner/westerner so what he has to do with activities of his father??? Many Afghans are scared through out Pakistan so what if they are relatives of Mullah Omar, does it make them guilty or militants

So u want to say that ISI and pakistani security agencies are doing wrong thing by arresting him, do u call for his release.



"Karachi, Mar.4 (ANI): Pakistani security agencies have claimed another prized catch as they reportedly nabbed the son-in-law of Afghan Taliban's supreme commander Mullah Omar here on Thursday."


If he's so innocent then why the pakistani agencies have arrested him, do u see a human right violation of a innocent in this.


It is a claim by pakistani security agencies not by Indian agencies so better read before replying.


It is strange why biggest terrorists are getting nabbed in biggest cities deep inside of Pakistan.