Pakistanis arrest 5 suspects; 'Taliban gloomy'

Quetta, Mar 4: Pakistani police arrested five suspected Afghanmilitants in a raid in the southwestern city of Quetta, as a Pakistaninewspaper today said the Taliban had conceded the arrest last week ofone of their top leaders.

The five suspected militants were among 32 Afghans rounded up inQuetta, where Pakistani security officials said senior Taliban leaderMullah Obaidullah Akhund was arrested last Monday.

''They are Afghans aged between 20 and 25 and they came fromWaziristan,'' said senior Quetta police officer Qazi Abdul Wahid,referring to a volatile Pakistani region on the Afghan border whereTaliban and al Qaeda operate.

Wahid did not say if the five were members of the Taliban but saidthey were seized with compromising Islamist documents. They were beinginterrogated, he said.

He said 27 other Afghans had been picked up in raids in the city on Saturday night and they were also being questioned.

The Afghan government and foreign officials in Kabul have longsaid the Taliban were organising their insurgency against the Afghangovernment from Quetta, capital of Baluchistan province, which bordersAfghanistan.

The insurgents have threatened to unleash a spring offensive inAfghanistan in coming weeks after the bloodiest year since their ousterin 2001.

Pakistan has been coming under mounting pressure from the UnitedStates and other Western governments with troops in Afghanistan to takeaction against Taliban operating from sanctuaries on the Pakistani sideof the border.

Akund's arrest came hours after a visit to Pakistan by US VicePresident Dick Cheney in which he asked Pakistan to do more against theTaliban.

'Gloom'

The Pakistani government has not confirmed the arrest of former Taliban defence minister.

Officials say the government is worried about a backlash frommilitants and Islamist political parties bitterly opposed to PresidentPervez Musharraf's alliance with the United States in its war onterrorism.

Taliban spokesman have denied Akhund was captured, but Pakistan'sthe News newspaper said on Sunday a top Taliban commander and someTaliban officials were reluctantly admitting reports of his arrestappeared to be true.

''One indication that the reports of his arrest are true is thefact that most of our military commanders and spokesman have turned offtheir satellite phones,'' a Taliban military commander told thenewspaper.

''This has happened in the past also whenever someone importantamong the Taliban was captured,'' said the unidentified commander.

Another Taliban official told the newspaper: ''There is gloom inour ranks. It would take some time to overcome the shock of thearrest.'' In Quetta, extra security forces has been deployed atgovernment buildings and in various public places.

Pakistan has been in the grip of a security scare as militantgroups sympathetic to al Qaeda and the Taliban have carried out aseries of suicide and bomb attacks in various cities following amid-January air strike on militant compounds in Waziristan.

Separately, Pakistani security forces arrested five foreignmilitants on Saturday in the southwestern city of Tuftan near theIranian border, a security official said.

The five, from Russia, Turkey and Kyrgyzstan, were arrested after crossing in from Iran, the border security official said.

Reuters>