Taliban commander caught fleeing in a burqa

KANDAHAR: Afghan troops captured a senior Taliban commander who tried to escape a manhunt disguised as a woman wearing an all-covering burqa, the NATO force said on Wednesday.   

Soldiers at a checkpoint in the southern province of Kandahar Tuesday "spotted the oddity" when the militant tried to pass them hidden under the garment, which has a grille over the face, it said in a statement.   

The man, identified as Mullah Mahmood, was an "extremist commander and suicide attack facilitator" for Kandahar province. He was trying to escape from the Panjwayi area 35 kilometres west of Kandahar city. The area was the scene of heavy battles between the Taliban and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in September.   

The puritanical Islamist 1996-2001 Taliban government forced women to wear the burqa or be publicly punished. The garment is a tent-like cloak still worn by most Afghan women in rural areas.   

With international forces under pressure after US troops were accused of killing around 20 civilians in action at the weekend, ISAF said the use of a burqa to escape showed the Taliban were willing to risk the public's safety.   

"It just shows you they are willing to put people in danger because they are posing as civilians," ISAF spokesman Colonel Tom Collins told reporters.   

ISAF and the coalition say civilian casualties are often the result of militants mixing with normal people, sometimes using them as human shields.   

Collins said criticism about civilian casualties "held the international coalition to a much higher standard."   

He said however that rights groups did not complain about Taliban suicide bombings that killed scores of civilians because "they know it is futile" and would "fall on deaf ears because the Taliban are immoral."