As I read the article I realized why. No need to trouble American minds outside Boston.
"US, Pakistan capture a top Taliban leader; Hopeful on interrogations" by Mark Mazzetti and Dexter Filkins, New York Times | February 16, 2010
WASHINGTON - The Taliban’s top military commander has been captured in Karachi, Pakistan, in a secret joint operation by Pakistani and US intelligence forces, according to US government officials.
Oh, that's one reason it never made print for us rubes out here, huh?
The commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, is an Afghan described by US officials as the most significant Taliban figure to be detained since the American-led war in Afghanistan began more than eight years ago. He ranks second in influence only to Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban’s founder....
Baradar has been in Pakistani custody for several days, with US and Pakistani intelligence officials taking part in interrogations, according to the officials.
Translation: He is being tortured.
It was unclear whether he was talking, but the officials said his capture had provided a window into the Taliban and could lead to other senior officials. Most immediately, they hope he will provide the whereabouts of Omar, the cleric who is the group’s spiritual leader.
Disclosure of Baradar’s capture came while US and Afghan forces were participating in a major offensive in southern Afghanistan.
His capture could cripple the Taliban’s military operations, at least in the short term, said Bruce O. Riedel, a CIA veteran who last spring led the Obama administration’s Afghanistan and Pakistan policy review.
Details of the raid were few, but officials said that it had been carried out by Pakistan’s military spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, and that CIA operatives had accompanied the Pakistanis.
Translation: They knew where their operative was and they went and got him.
"The U.S. government was well aware of the Taliban's reactionary program, yet it chose to back their rise to power in the mid-1990s. The creation of the Taliban was "actively encouraged by the ISI and the CIA," according to Selig Harrison, an expert on U.S. relations with Asia. "The United States encouraged Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to support the Taliban, certainly right up to their advance on Kabul," adds respected journalist Ahmed Rashid. When the Taliban took power, State Department spokesperson Glyn Davies said that he saw "nothing objectionable" in the Taliban's plans to impose strict Islamic law, and Senator Hank Brown, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Near East and South Asia, welcomed the new regime: "The good part of what has happened is that one of the factions at last seems capable of developing a new government in Afghanistan." "The Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis. There will be Aramco [the consortium of oil companies that controlled Saudi oil], pipelines, an emir, no parliament and lots of Sharia law. We can live with that," said another U.S. diplomat in 1997."
The TALIBAN was established under U.S. AUSPICES?
And the "rumors" of Pakistan supporting them as a chip in Afghanistan after we allegedly leave (we never are, America; we are STAYING in Marjah) would appear to have some validity also, no?
The New York Times learned of the operation on Thursday but delayed reporting it at the request of White House officials, who contended that making it public would end a hugely successful intelligence-gathering effort.
Like them sitting on the illegal Bush spying for over a year?
And The Glob decided not to print this at all.
How many things are the NYT and BG simply never telling us, folks?
"Covert action programs, a particularly secret category in which the role of the United States is hidden"
Yeah, like that.
The officials said that the group’s leaders had been unaware of Baradar’s capture and that if it became public they might cover their tracks and become more careful about communicating with one another.
The Times is publishing the news because White House officials acknowledged that the capture of Baradar was becoming widely known in the region.
Yeah, whatever NYT. I can see why the BG dropped this.
Several US government officials gave details about the raid on the condition that they not be named, because the operation was classified.
US officials believe that besides running the Taliban’s military operations, Baradar oversees the group’s leadership council, often called the Quetta Shura because its leaders for years have been thought to be hiding near Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province in Pakistan.
The participation of Pakistan’s spy service could suggest a new level of cooperation from Pakistan’s leaders, who have been ambivalent about US efforts to crush the Taliban.
Sold out or just a sacrifice to keep us off their backs?
Increasingly, the Americans say, senior leaders in Pakistan, including the chief of its army, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, have gradually come to believe they can no longer support the Taliban in Afghanistan - as they have quietly done for years - without endangering themselves.
Related: The Danger to Pakistan's Democracy
The officials said that Pakistan was leading the interrogation of Baradar but that Americans were also involved. The conditions of the questioning are unclear. In its first week in office, the Obama administration banned harsh interrogations such as waterboarding by Americans, but the Pakistanis have long been known to subject prisoners to brutal questioning.
Again, each paragraph gives you another reason as to why this article never appeared in the printed paper.
US intelligence officials believe that elements within Pakistan’s security services have covertly supported the Taliban with money and logistical help - largely out of a desire to retain some ally inside Afghanistan for the inevitable day when the Americans leave.
The ability of the Taliban’s top leaders to operate relatively freely inside Pakistan has for years been a source of friction between the ISI and the CIA....
In recent months, a growing number of Taliban leaders are believed to have fled to Karachi, a vast, chaotic city in southern Pakistan hundreds of miles from the turbulence of the Afghan frontier.
Then they were definitely NOT behind the bombing, huh?
Related:
"The southern city of Karachi has largely been spared the Taliban-linked violence that has struck much of the rest of the country, a fact that analysts believe is driven by the group’s tendency to use the teeming metropolis as a place to rest and raise money."
Yeah, they bombed their own vacation and fund-raising spot, yup.
Can't have it both ways, a**holes!
Unless.... !
A diplomat based in Kabul, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said in an interview last month that Omar had moved to Karachi, and that several of his colleagues were there as well.
Then how come CIA and ISI don't go get him?
Or do they already have him on ice and are just waiting for the proper time to get the most agenda-pushing pr?
--more--"
Related: The Mystery Man of the Taliban
Also see: The Boston Globe's Invisible Ink: Pakistan's Peace Probe
Updates:
And the LIES continue!
"Afghan Taliban’s Top Military Commander Is Captured - Maybe
Mullah Baradar: friend or foe?
The Afghan authorities confirmed on Tuesday reports that the Taliban’s second-in-command, Mullah Baradar, has been arrested in Pakistan. But while the West considers the capture of such a ‘big fish’ a strategic victory, our correspondent points out that he was also the key to a possible diplomatic solution to the conflict.
Taliban In Secret Talks With U.S., Afghanistan
Yup, INVISIBLE INK ALL OVER my "newspaper."
Update:
I stand corrected.
"Pakistan confirms that it has captured second in command" by Rohan Sullivan, Associated Press | February 18, 2010
ISLAMABAD - Pakistan confirmed for the first time yesterday that it has the Afghan Taliban’s number two leader in custody, and officials said he was providing useful intelligence that was being shared with the United States....
Ah, yes, they had to wait for "confirmation," I'm sorry, readers.
The Afghan Taliban leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, was arrested earlier this month in a joint operation by CIA and Pakistani security forces in the southern port city of Karachi, US, and Pakistani officials said on condition of anonymity Tuesday. The army yesterday gave the first public confirmation of the arrest.
“At the conclusion of detailed identification procedures, it has been confirmed that one of the persons arrested happens to be Mullah Baradar,’’ chief army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said in a written message to reporters. “The place of arrest and operational details cannot be released due to security reasons.’’
Because of the torture, right?
The White House also confirmed the capture for the first time yesterday. Spokesman Robert Gibbs praised Pakistan and told reporters the arrest “is a big success for our mutual efforts in the region.’’
Gibbs confirmed Baradar is being interrogated but would not divulge any of the results.
I give up on this administration.
A US official who was briefed on the case told the Associated Press that Baradar is not fully cooperating with authorities, and he has not provided any actionable information. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.
What is with the CONFLICTING ACCOUNTS, huh?
Pakistan's dog-and-pony show not enough for the war-hungry AmeriKan war machine?
Baradar was the second-in-command behind Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and was said to be in charge of the day-to-day running of the organization’s leadership council, which is believed based in Pakistan. He was a founding member of the Taliban and is the most important figure of the hard-line Islamist movement to be arrested since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
Baradar, who also functioned as the link between Mullah Omar and field commanders, has been in detention for more than 10 days and was talking to interrogators, two Pakistani intelligence officials said Tuesday.
One said that Baradar had provided useful information to them and that Pakistan officials had shared it with their US counterparts. A third official said yesterday that Baradar was being held at an office of Pakistan’s most powerful spy agency, the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, in Karachi.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Baradar’s arrest suggests the Pakistani intelligence services may be ready to deny Afghan militant leaders a safe haven in Pakistan - something critics have long accused them of doing.
Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi called the arrest important and rejected suggestions that Pakistan was not cooperating with the United States against militants, citing as evidence recent military operations against Taliban strongholds in the Swat Valley and Waziristan tribal region.
“Our cooperation is beyond doubt,’’ Qureshi told the BBC.
The arrest may also push other insurgent leaders thought to be sheltering in Pakistan toward reconciliation talks with the Afghan government - a development increasingly seen as key to ending the eight-year war.
Oh, yeah, the not-to-be-taken-seriously peace talks.
The arrest came shortly before US, Afghan, and NATO troops launched a major offensive against militants in the Taliban stronghold of Marjah in the southern province of Helmand, one of the regions that Baradar was believed to control....
Then how come we are having so much trouble over there?
See:
- The Boys in Company K
- The Taking of Marjah
- Afghan Exodus
- AmeriKa's Afghan Offensive Has Begun
- AmeriKa Letting the Missiles Fly in Marjah
- The Battle For Marjah
The confirmation came as the Pakistani government defused a political crisis that threatened to distract from the fight against militancy by backing off on judicial appointments opposed by the Supreme Court.Related: The Danger to Pakistan's Democracy
The latest crisis involved ongoing political turmoil between the judiciary and the executive branches.
Our executive just doesn't listen here, so what's the problem, Pakistan?
Pakistan’s constitution says the president must consult with the Supreme Court over the appointment of new judges.
A what?
But on Saturday, President Asif Ali Zardari appointed a judge to the Supreme Court against its recommendation.
Pulling a Musha-riff-raff, 'eh, Zardy?!!!
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