Taliban Military Chief Mullah Baradar captured by Pakistan

[S-2]

"Why not talk over Pakistan-US Bilateral relations??"

Why not start a thread elsewhere and do so?

Thanks.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Analysts say the story was downplayed because it would have raised uncomfortable questions over the military's collaboration with the US, especially at a time when the army had not yet confirmed the arrest and had not formulated its public response.

Any collaboration with the US in its "war on terror" in Afghanistan has become increasingly unpopular since an elected government took power in 2008.

Some of the criticism has emanated from the military itself.

Observers feel that there would have a been an uproar in the media had the arrest taken place with the approval of the political establishment.


'Muted' Pakistan media response to Taliban arrest

ISPR confirmed it today.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Many believe that their muted response is indicative of the extent to which the Pakistani security establishment can influence the media.

'Muted' Pakistan media response to Taliban arrest

Amazing - and yet this influence was nowhere to be seen when Musharraf and the military were being tarred and feathered in the press after the Lal Masji operation, nor was it anywhere to be seen when Musharraf was fighting for political survival in 2007.

In any case, if the NYT can openly admit in this case that it 'sat on the story for X days because the US government asked it to', and other US news organizations have done the same in the past, why create an 'evil conspiracy' of the 'evil ISI' if the Pakistani military asked its media to do the same?

 

[Spring Onion]

The Pakistani media's response to the arrest of top Afghan Taliban military commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar has been surprisingly muted.

Mullah Baradar was arrested near Karachi in a joint raid by the CIA and the Pakistani military's intelligence service on 8 February.

The arrest made international headlines throughout the day on Tuesday.

But Pakistani newspapers and television channels barely covered the news, with some completely ignoring it.

Analysts say the blackout was because Pakistan's government and the army are wary of being seen as an American poodle.

'Ignored'

Most newspapers on Wednesday morning relegated the story either to the lower half of their front page, or to the back page.

And all confined themselves to excerpts from the New York Times report - which broke the story on Tuesday - and the curt reactions of US and Pakistani officials.

The only exception was the Dawn newspaper which carried a detailed follow-up of the story, explaining when and where Mullah Baradar was captured - information that the New York Times report did not include.

The electronic media, which has greater outreach in a country like Pakistan with its low literacy rate, totally ignored the news except in their early morning bulletins which broadcast the news quoting the New York Times report.

There was a complete blackout of the story in all the top-of-the-hour bulletins after midday on Tuesday.

This has surprised many in Pakistan, given that a vibrant private-sector electronic media has lately shown itself to be aggressively competitive in digging up important news and follow-up stories.

Because Tuesday was otherwise a slow day for news, journalists cannot argue that they did not have enough time to examine the implications of the arrest.

Many believe that their muted response is indicative of the extent to which the Pakistani security establishment can influence the media.

The Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), which helped the CIA arrest Mullah Baradar, is widely understood to be well outside the control of the government and is more directly linked with the military.

Analysts say the story was downplayed because it would have raised uncomfortable questions over the military's collaboration with the US, especially at a time when the army had not yet confirmed the arrest and had not formulated its public response.

Any collaboration with the US in its "war on terror" in Afghanistan has become increasingly unpopular since an elected government took power in 2008.

Some of the criticism has emanated from the military itself.

Observers feel that there would have a been an uproar in the media had the arrest taken place with the approval of the political establishment.


'Muted' Pakistan media response to Taliban arrest

Our Media had learned to first confirm it and only then highlight it.
Pakistani media had never been supporter of Pakistani army neither we had ever cared if such development will raise any question about Pakistan army cooperation with US.

Its been an open secret that Pakistan Army and US had a long standing cooperation though strained sometimes but it had always been a friendly venture.


And oh let me tell you another thing the media here in NWFP even knows more than what you are getting in the press about this development

 

[TaimiKhan]

The Pakistani media's response to the arrest of top Afghan Taliban military commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar has been surprisingly muted.


'Muted' Pakistan media response to Taliban arrest

Well ISPR confirmed it, Dawn News reported it, Geo reported it, Express News showed it in their news headlines repeatedly, Center Stage with Fahan on Express News discussed it at length, so did other news channels in their daily current events shows, then how can the BBC tell this absurd news. Or where they expecting the JI , JUI, Tehreek Insaf and others taking our processions out to protest the arrest.

BBC on some other agenda it seems.

 

[H2O3C4Nitrogen]

Ok now ppl are unhappy coz it didnt recieved a proper media coverage ... And some even care to believe the **** that PA is influencing the media .. Now even if they are , i simply ask , Is it a bad thing to manage state media ?

They did cought the bastard dint they ..! Now tats something worth appreciable , rather than becoming so naive & retard to actually amplify a little twist in the whole story ..!

Now theres twist in almost every thing , like Isaf bombs Taliban , thats a good thing , But it ends up bombing innocent civilians including women and children
, Now theres some twist , But unfortunately no one gives a Damn Sh.it . Now it could be comfortably deduced that " they have influence over the high column which feels so happy to let them go " Afterall they are fighting the taliban , the true Irhabists , The worst of mankind , Dont they ..

 

[manojb]

I have not seen anywhere in the world tanks and airforce is used on its own territory on its own people.

Tiananmen square?? Lal Masjid??

 

[H2O3C4Nitrogen]

^^ Naxals, also probably ..!

 

[Awesome]

Part of me wants to think he engineered his own bust but I'm disinclined to go THAT FAR

As far speculations go, that has to be the best one...

I don't agree or disagree with it, but lets just say if that's true, everything fits. There may be other ways things would fit, but thats the simplest of them all.

 

[TaimiKhan]

Tiananmen square?? Lal Masjid??

Why forgetting Golden Temple, Operation Polo, so many times in Indian Occupied Kashmir.

 

[Spring Onion]

Baradar more dangerous than Omar ISLAMABAD: Known as a brilliant and charismatic military commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar was the second-most powerful figure in Afghanistan’s Taliban movement.

He was described by many terrorism experts as more cunning and dangerous than even the Taliban supreme leader and his old friend Mullah Omar.

Mullah Baradar’s capture from a place on the outskirts of Karachi was the result of increasing US pressure on Pakistan to pursue a policy of killing or capturing the Taliban leadership believed to be hiding in the country.

The detention of one of their most powerful commander sent a clear message to the Taliban leadership that Pakistan was no more a safe haven for them.

Pakistani intelligence had been keeping a close track of the movement of the Taliban leadership which had earlier moved freely.

Mullah Baradar’s arrest demonstrated increasing cooperation between the Central Intelligence Agency and Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence.

Mullah Baradar has been credited for rebuilding the Taliban into an effective fighting force and running the group’s day-to-day affairs for the past many years with Mullah Omar taking a back seat because of his falling health.

Besides heading the Taliban’s military operations, he ran the group’s leadership council, also known as the Quetta Shura because its leaders have been thought to be hiding for years near Quetta.

Mullah Baradar was born in 1968 in Weetmak, a village in Afghanistan’s Oruzgan province. As a young man he participated in the Afghan Mujahideen war against the Soviet forces.

It was during the war that he came to know of Mullah Omar. They fought side by side against the communist forces. Some reports suggest that the two had married two sisters.

After the withdrawal of Soviet forces and collapse of the communist regime in Kabul in 1992, Mullah Baradar and Mullah Omar settled down in the southern Afghan district of Maiwand where they ran their own madressah.



When Mullah Omar started a revolt in 1994 against local warlords with a force of some 30 men, Mullah Baradar was among the first recruits. That was also the beginning the Taliban movement which in 1996 swept Kabul and established a hard line conservative regime.

He first served as Taliban’s corps commander for western Afghanistan and later as the garrison commander of Kabul where he directed the fight against rival Mujahideen commanders in the north.

He was with Mullah Omar when US bombs pounded Kandahar in November 2001. According to some reports it was Mullah Baradar who hopped on a motorcycle and drove his old friend to safety in the mountains.

Many terrorism experts describe Mullah Baradar as the most skilled military leader who spearheaded the fighting in southern Afghanistan. His forces were responsible for inflicting heavy casualties on the Western forces last year.

He also conducted the Taliban’s financial operations, allocated Taliban funds, appointed military commanders and designed military tactics.

Mullah Baradar was quoted last year as telling his fighters not to confront US soldiers possessing superior firepower, but to operate using guerrilla tactics.

He was said to be responsible for the Taliban tactic of planting “flowers” -- improvised explosive devices (IEDs) -- along roadsides.

Mullah Baradar was believed to have been often travelling to Karachi to meet other members of the so-called Quetta Shura or leadership council who had moved to the port city in recent months.

The intelligence sharing and cooperation between the United States and Pakistan has broadened and deepened in recent months.



The recent CIA drone strikes in South Waziristan that killed top Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud and his successor Hakimullah Mehsud are indicative of the improved relationship between the two allies.

The capture of Mullah Baradar came when American and Afghan forces are in the midst of a major offensive in southern Afghanistan.



Defence analysts said Mullah Baradar’s arrest had dealt a serious blow to Taliban which had expanded its influence to a large part of Afghanistan.

But some analysts warn that its impact would not change the course of war in Afghanistan. “One should be cautious in assessing its net impact,” said Maliha Lodhi, a former ambassador to Washington.

Dawn.com

 

[Awesome]

As of four-six months ago, there was much speculation that the taliban were achieving an overwhelming military victory.

To add one of the primary motivators from the US side came with the killing of Baitullah Mehsud. Up until then, the US was very nearly written off by the Pakistani public at large as Indian collaborators out to execute that planned dismemberment, leaving Pakistan as just Punjab and Sindh.

From the US's point of view, as much as it has been bickered that Pakistan only goes after the Pakistani Taliban and not the Afghan Taliban, the US has realized that Pakistan is better able to serve the US's anti-Afghan Taliban needs by attaining more sovereignty upon its own territory.

Its been a mixed bag of circumstances, confidence building measures and luck that has allowed for better cooperation culminating to arrests of this magnitude.

 

[Awesome]

More speculations that the US and Biradar were friends that Pakistan moved in to circumvent any back channel diplomacy:

Pakistan arrests a Taliban leader: Deciphering the arrest of a Taliban commander | The Economist

THE arrest of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban's number two or three figure and perhaps its supreme military figure, depending on who you read, is "unadulterated good news", wrote the New Yorker's Steve Coll yesterday. It means Pakistan is coming around to supporting American attempts to encourage the Taliban to negotiate with the government.

Pakistan’s support for the Afghan Taliban, especially in recent years, was always best understood as a military lever to promote political accommodations of Pakistan in Kabul. Baradar, however, has defiantly refused to participate in such political strategies, as he indicated in an e-mail interview he gave to Newsweek last year. The more the Taliban’s leaders enjoying sanctuary in Karachi or Quetta refuse to lash themselves to Pakistani political strategy, the more vulnerable they become to a knock on the door in the middle of the night.

This morning, the New York Times' Carlotta Gall and Souad Mekhennet adulterated the good news a little.

(W)ith the arrest of Mullah Baradar, Pakistan has effectively isolated a key link to the Taliban leadership, making itself the main channel instead... [T]he Pakistani move could come at the expense of the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai and complicate reconciliation efforts his government has begun.

An American intelligence official in Europe conceded as much, while also acknowledging Mullah Baradar’s key role in the reconciliation process. “I know that our people had been in touch with people around him and were negotiating with him,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue.

“So it doesn’t make sense why we bite the hand that is feeding us,” the official added. “And now the Taliban will have no reason to negotiate with us; they will not believe anything we will offer or say.”

So either the Pakistanis have finally decided to stop backing Taliban military efforts as a means of enhancing Pakistani influence in Afghanistan and start supporting a negotiated settlement, or they have eliminated a Taliban leader who tried to circumvent them in cutting a deal with the Americans and the Afghan government.

So basically according to this theory either the US and Pakistan are the best of friends now or playing each other out?

Over the past decade, we've all inadvertently acquired a bit of expertise in the kind of news that comes out of the Middle and Near East. Which explanation sounds more plausible?

Michael Cohen takes Mr Coll's line, while Juan Cole is more circumspect. Most of us have little idea what the arrest of Mr Baradar signifies, but that doesn't stop us from employing the news to support our preconceptions and political agendas. (Two longstanding right-wing blogs even managed to use Mr Baradar's arrest as an excuse to restate their displeasure at the fact that suspected terrorists arrested on American soil, like anyone else arrested in America, are made aware of their constitutional rights.) Whether or not Mr Baradar's arrest actually moves America closer to "victory" in Afghanistan, however one defines that, it almost certainly moves America closer to creating the impression of having been at least somewhat victorious. That, as we are seeing in Iraq, is the major prerequisite for an American withdrawal.

Another theory. A few such number 2s and number 3s can be caught with 6 months gaps to announce American victory?

Yikes, and I thought Pakistani columnists were the best one it came to coming up with the worst case scenarios and making them all sound plausible.

 

[S-2]

"If Gall's theory is correct, the US should have taken Pakistan along to begin with, instead of working behind our backs, implying duplicity, especially given the US-Pak trust deficit."

I see no theory from Gall. I see reported speculation of un-named Pakistani intelligence sources that we've negotiated with the taliban and excluded Pakistan from such.

I see that speculation supported by further un-named American intelligence sources in Europe-

“I know that our people had been in touch with people around him and were negotiating with him,”

I also denials of such from un-named American sources.

"An American official in Washington who has been briefed on the arrest denied that there had been negotiations with the Taliban commander or that Pakistani intelligence engineered the arrest to ensure a role in negotiations. 'That’s a conspiracy theory to which I give no credit, because it’s just not true,' the official said."

Those denials dove-tail with stated comments by Sec'y of State Clinton-

Clinton Says No To Talking To 'Really Bad Guys' In Taliban-AFP Jan. 30, 2010

Finally, if this was an effort by the ISI to isolate Baradar from the Americans, what explains the "jointness" of the operation and our participation in his interrogation? Can you imagine that?

BARADAR: I'm negotiating with the Americans and you're busting me?

ISI: We don't want you to do so.

CIA: Yeah, but we do.

BARADAR: Will you guys make up your mind, please. I'm taking a nap until you figure this out.

One last edit-Here's an article that suggests we don't see any possibility of meaningful negotiation until the taliban begin to see the liklihood that they can't achieve their goals and are prepared to mollify their positions. From Helene Cooper of the NYT-

U.S. Wrestling With Olive Branch For Taliban-NYT Jan. 26,2010

There's speculation that some elements within the administration are more open than others. There's also concerns about the ability to achieve meaningful discussions absent some real leverage. Baradar would know if the taliban feel any ISAF leverage to open more fruitful discussions.

Thanks.

 

[iPhone]

Because Tuesday was otherwise a slow day for news, journalists cannot argue that they did not have enough time to examine the implications of the arrest.

maybe be in the Great Britain but not in Pakistan. We had a clossal judiciary crisis being unfolded in the country with opposition announcing another possible long march. Journalists and tv channels had to cover this massive domestic political crisis but still managed to give extensive coverage to this arrest. As indicated in a post a few pages back, seems like westerns wanted and expected major rallies on the streets of Pakistan in light of this arrest, for some strange reasons.