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Captured Taliban official says Mullah Omar in Afghanistan

A detained Taliban 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.

Mullah Hakim Latifi, who has often claimed responsibility on behalf of the Taliban for attacks on US-led coalition forces, was arrested in Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan Province, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said.

Latifi was not a prominent figure in the Taliban while the Islamic 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 Taliban leadership are unclear.

Satellite phone

"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 Latifi in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan. The official declined to be named because of the secretive nature of his job.

Some Pakistani officials said Latifi was arrested on Tuesday, but the intelligence official said he was detained on Sunday at a home in Quetta's Newi Killi neighborhood. Latifi's arrest was not announced because he was being interrogated about other Taliban leaders, the official said.

Four "low-level" aides of Latifi were arrested from several other homes in Newi Killi, the official said.

Intelligence agents seized two satellite phones, two Pakistani mobile phones, Taliban literature, audio cassettes and CDs containing films of Taliban operations, he said.

Spokesman?

Pakistani officials described Latifi as a Taliban spokesman. But information from Latifi in the past has sometimes proven exaggerated or untrue.

Afghan and US military officials say that he is believed to speak for factions of the rebel group.

Afghanistan welcomed Latifi'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 Taliban, 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 US.
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