Taliban commander captured in joint raid in Karachi

The arrest of Afghan Taliban’s No 2 Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar Akhund from Pakistan’s commercial capital of Karachi in a joint raid carried out by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives has come as a major blow to the extremist militia led by the fugitive Taliban ameer Mullah Mohammad Omar.

According to well placed Pakistani intelligence sources, Baradar’s arrest became possible because of a rift within the Taliban ranks which led to a tip about his whereabouts in Karachi. He was subsequently arrested on February following a raid jointly carried out by the Pakistani and the American intelligence sleuths.

Born in 1968 at Weetmak Village in Dehrawood district of the Uruzgan province of Afghanistan, Mullah Baradar is a key member of the Quetta shura led by Mullah Omar. He had been the deputy defence minister in Afghanistan before the fall of the Taliban regime and considered to be the No 2 in the Taliban militia after Mullah Muhammad Omar. Bardar had been leading the military council of the Afghan Taliban since the 2006 death of Taliban’s former military chief Mullah Akhtar Mohammed Usmani at the hands of the Nato forces.

Baradar has been coordinating the military operations of the Taliban militia throughout south and southwest of Afghanistan and his area of responsibility stretched over Kandahar, Helmand, Nimroz, Zabul and Uruzgan provinces of Afghanistan. Mullah Akhtar and Mullah Baradar were in day-to-day command of the Taliban insurgents ever since Mullah Mohammed Omar had disappeared from the scene.

The intelligence sources in Islamabad said he was hiding in Karachi because the Taliban now consider it the safest place for them in Pakistan to live, where they do not attract attention of the Pakistani and American intelligence agencies by keeping a low profile.

The Pakistani intelligence sources do not rule out the possibility of the presence of many more senior Taliban leaders in Karachi, including Mullah Mohammad Omar.