Tackling the Taleban terror

ISLAMABAD - PAKISTANI security forces captured one of the Taleban's three most senior leaders just hours after US Vice-President Dick Cheney made an unannounced visit to the country earlier this week.

The capture of Mullah Obaidullah Akhund marked the first Pakistan arrest of a senior leader of the Islamist militia since it was driven from power in Afghanistan in 2001, and thousands of its fighters fled into Pakistan.

Sources said that Akhund, the third most senior member of the Taleban's 10-member leadership council, was arrested late on Monday in the south-west city of Quetta.

Besides being on the leadership council headed by Mullah Mohammad Omar, Akhund was also defence minister in the Taleban government before it fell.

The arrest comes at a time when the Bush administration is facing a welter of scepticism from Democrats, the American media and several think-tanks over Pakistan's role as an ally in the war on terrorism.

Mr Cheney had asked Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to do more to stop Al-Qaeda rebuilding safe havens in Pakistani tribal lands and step up efforts to thwart a new offensive by the Taleban against Afghan and Nato troops.

As defence minister, Akhund was believed to have liaised closely with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence during the years when the Taleban was in power in Kabul and could count on Pakistani support.

A Pakistani security official said Akhund's arrest was the culmination of a planned operation and not a result of Mr Cheney's visit.

Taleban sources said Akhund was caught at the home of one of his relatives at the Baluchistan provincial capital. They said two other Taleban leaders had been arrested in Quetta this week, but the Pakistani security official could not confirm this.

But even as details of the capture were released, a top Pakistani official said US pressure, including congressional threats to cut or put conditions on billions of dollars in aid, could destabilise the country and may even bring down President Musharraf.

In an interview with Reuters, Mr Mahmud Ali Durrani, Islamabad's envoy to Washington, expressed concern that anti-terrorism cooperation between the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan was eroding. He also rejected what he said were attempts to unfairly blame Islamabad for an upsurge in cross-border violence.

Tampering with US aid levels will fan anti-Americanism, strengthen the extreme right and Taleban supporters, be counterproductive and 'create problems for Musharraf to be able to continue the way he is', Mr Durrani said.

Asked if it might trigger President Musharraf's ouster, he replied: 'I do not know. Possibly it could bring him down. It could destabilise the whole country.'

His comments came after top American intelligence officials said the front-line US ally in the war on terrorism had allowed a resurgence of Al-Qaeda and Taleban forces and training camps in Pakistani tribal areas that could someday lead to another 9/11-type attack on the US.

A recent report by experts at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies questioned whether the US alliance with Mr Musharraf has 'run its course', while acknowledging there is no obvious successor to lead nuclear-armed Pakistan as a moderate Muslim state.

Mr Durrani argued that the US, 'distracted' by Iraq, failed to finish the job in Afghanistan and is now looking for someone to blame.

He acknowledged problems in Pakistani tribal areas, including 'a possibility of some presence of Al-Qaeda, definitely some presence of Taleban', but he insisted 90 per cent of the violence stems from Afghanistan.

REUTERS