AN ATOL EXCLUSIVE Pakistan frees Taliban commander
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
ISLAMABAD - Pakistan has freed the supreme commander of the Taliban in
Afghanistan, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, so that he can play a pivotal role in
backchannel talks through the Pakistani army with Washington, Asia Times Online
has learned.
The release of Baradar, who was arrested in the southern Pakistani port city of
Karachi in February, was confirmed by a senior Pakistani counter-terrorism
official. He added that the United States was fully aware of the development
although he gave no indication of the Americans' reaction.
A senior Taliban leader, speaking to Asia Times Online on Thursday from the
southern AfPak region, also confirmed that
Baradar "had reached the safely of his people". The implication is that he is
back with Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Baradar has represented Mullah Omar in
previous peace talks with Washington, mediated by Saudi Arabia.
When news broke of Baradar's arrest in a raid by Pakistani and US intelligence
officials, it was widely touted as a major victory in the war in Afghanistan,
given his top position.
Talking to Asia Times Online at the time, a senior US official confided that
Baradar had been picked up in a stroke of luck as intelligence operatives were
not aware that he was in the vicinity when they went after other suspects. (See
Pakistan, US
undeterred by Afghan setback Asia Times Online, April 23, 2010.)
"The Pakistan army's mental block about the Afghan Taliban is still there. They
still believe them as their connection in Afghanistan. Mullah Baradar's arrest
was not deliberate, it was a mistake," the US official told Asia Times Online.
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was aware of the presence of
Baradar and other Taliban figures in Karachi but never intercepted them because
they were not considered a threat to the internal security of the country. The
military did not want to mess with them as it was convinced that once foreign
forces finally withdrew from Afghanistan, these Taliban would in one way or
another be a part of the political set-up.
"At the time of Baradar's arrest, all the [Pakistani] bosses [chief of army
staff and director general of the ISI] were in Brussels. We got a hint that
somebody very important was lurking in Karachi. We informed them [Pakistanis]
and jointly we went there. At the time of the arrest, neither we nor the
Pakistanis were aware that they had rounded up Baradar," the official told Asia
Times Online after the arrest.
Following Baradar's seizure, the US tried its level-best to get its hands on
him through the Afghan government, which pressed Pakistan to deport its citizen
so that he could be tried in an Afghan court.
But squadron leader Khalid Khawaja, a former ISI official killed this year by
militants in Pakistan, successfully petitioned for a stay in the Lahore High
Court against Baradar's extradition. Baradar was confined in a very comfortable
safe house in the capital, Islamabad.
Several days after his arrest, the Americans were given access to him, and
according to a US official he shared some valuable information. However,
because of the delay in access, the situation had already changed on the
ground.
Baradar's release coincides with an announcement by the chairman of the US
Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, that Pakistan had promised to
launch military operations in the North Waziristan tribal area to dislodge
al-Qaeda and the powerful Haqqani network, which is active in Afghanistan.
Pakistan has for months dragged its feet on going into this volatile area.
Mullen reiterated that war and reconciliation with the Taliban would continue
side-by-side. Before this statement, Pakistan's army chief General Ashfaq
Parvez Kiani toured North Waziristan and met members of the military stationed
there.
As a compromise, Pakistan might carry out limited surgical strikes in the town
of Mir Ali and in the Datta Khel area, home to al-Qaeda, and spare the
Miranshah and Dand-e-Darpa Khel areas that form the base of the Haqqani network
and his ally, Hafiz Gul Bahadur.
Pakistan adopted this approach in South Waziristan when it spared Moulvi
Nazeer, who runs the biggest Taliban network in the Paktika region across the
border. The military did target Makeen and Ladha, home to the Mehsud tribe that
was hostile to Pakistan and which had little role in the Taliban's struggle in
Afghanistan.
It appears, therefore, that a military operation is inevitable, even at this
critical juncture of embryonic backchannel talks with the Taliban. These
currently involve confidence-building measures on the part of Pakistan, Saudi
Arabia and the United Arab Emirates that are aimed at eventually bringing the
Taliban and the US to the negotiating table.
Baradar's chance arrest, his comfortable confinement, the refusal to hand him
over to Afghanistan, and now his secretive release once again show that the
real cards are in the hands of the Pakistan military and that it has the
ability to play an ace whenever it chooses.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can
be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
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