ISLAMABAD, 29 January 2005 — Police arrested 17 Afghans suspected of being Taleban militants, including a former Kabul police chief and a provincial governor, police said yesterday.
The men were arrested in overnight raids in the southwestern city of Quetta, provincial police chief Chaudhry Mohammad Yaqoob said. “Seventeen have been arrested, all Afghans,” he said. “They have been staying without legal documents. Some of them held important positions in the previous regime in Afghanistan. One was a governor and another the police chief of Kabul,” Yaqoob said, while declining to identify the men.
The arrests did not appear connected to a recent spate of anti-government violence in Balochistan province, which has involved local separatists rather than militants. Taleban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi denied that any Taleban figures had been arrested.
