KABUL, 18 January 2007 — NATO-led troops and Afghan forces detained a prominent Taleban commander during a raid on a compound in southern Afghanistan, the alliance said yesterday. The arrested commander, whom NATO did not identify, was captured in the Gereshk district of Helmand province late Tuesday after fleeing a recent military offensive, NATO said in a statement.
NATO spokesman Sqn. Leader Dave Marsh claimed the militant was the leader of the insurgents in Panjwayi district of neighboring Kandahar province, where last summer NATO troops waged their biggest ground offensive in the Western alliance’s history. “This seizure of a Taleban commander, once again shows that there is nowhere to hide for insurgent leaders,” Marsh said.
The raid came a day after Afghan agents arrested Mohammad Hanif, one of two spokesmen who often contacted journalists on behalf of the Taleban, in eastern Afghanistan. Sayed Ansari, the spokesman for Afghanistan’s intelligence service, told reporters yesterday that the Taleban spokesman’s real name is Abdulhaq Haji Gulroz, a 26-year-old Afghan from Nangarhar’s Chaparhar district.
Ansari said Hanif had lived in northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar and had told investigators that the Taleban’s reclusive leader Mullah Omar was living in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, protected by that country’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
Meanwhile, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said yesterday he would consider sending more troops to Afghanistan where US commanders say they expect the Taleban to step up attacks from Pakistani sanctuaries. Gates, in Afghanistan to ensure commanders have the resources to counter an expected Taleban offensive in the spring, said it was very important the United States and its allies did not let the success achieved in Afghanistan slip away.
Violence in Afghanistan intensified last year to its bloodiest since US-led forces overthrew the Taleban in 2001. US military commanders said attacks from Pakistan into Afghanistan had surged, several-fold in some areas, and the violence was expected to increase in the spring and summer.
