THE Taliban said today it had arrested a close aide to the rebel movement's slain commander Mullah Dadullah for treachery that led to his killing. “We have captured the spy who helped US forces kill Mullah Dadullah,” Taliban spokesman Shohabudin Atal said from Dadullah, known as the Taliban's top military strategist, was killed in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province last Friday in a joint Afghan and international operation. One-legged Dadullah was the most senior Taliban figure to be killed since the 2001 toppling of the extremist group's government. Spokesman Atal declined to disclose the name of the captured man but said Dadullah had stopped at the house of the suspect in Helmand's Bahramcha district when he came under attack from Coalition forces. Atal said the fate of the suspected informer was undecided, but the hardliners have previously executed people they have accused of spying for foreign forces operating in the country.
The spokesman said Dadullah's body was removed by his fighters but the same suspect passed on the information to Coalition forces, who moved in and seized the corpse, which was later displayed to the media. Asked how the rebels knew the man was a spy, Atal said: “Each time there was a (Coalition) strike the man would disappear and then reappear after the bombing was over.”
Atal said the man had confessed to being a spy for the US. The Afghan national intelligence department in Kabul said Wednesday the rebel commander was tracked “with (the) most modern intelligence technology from the Pakistani border before being killed”. NATO forces, which helped in the operation, said “as soon as we had information he was in the country, we pinpointed him very well and we started tracking him”.