The Taliban on Saturday rejected claims made by a captured spokesman that Taliban chief Mullah Omar was in Quetta under Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) protection, stressing that the man did not know the movement’s “military secrets”. The Taliban also rubbished statements by Doctor Mohammad Hanif, (whose real name is Abdul Haq Haqiq) that the group was being aided by Pakistan’s ISI agency and that it was operating suicide training camps in Pakistan. Hanif, 26, made the claims during a videotaped interrogation released by Afghan intelligence last Wednesday, following his arrest two days earlier while allegedly crossing from Pakistan into the Afghan province of Nangarhar. A Taliban statement posted on its website said that Hanif neither held a sufficiently senior position nor had been with the group long enough to know its “military secrets”.
“These claims have no basis and no proof,” said a Dari language version of the statement from “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan media committee." "Doctor Hanif wasn’t with the Taliban for long enough to know about the location of Amir-ul-Momineen (the Leader of Muslims). He is not old enough to know about Amir-ul-Momineen or to know about the Taliban military secrets.”
While the Taliban statement did not say where Mullah Omar was, it did go on to deny reports that its leaders had ordered the killing of Mullah Dadullah, the movement’s top commander in southern Afghanistan. Afghan officials had said that Hanif was found with documents alleging Dadullah’s involvement in the killing last month of Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani, a close associate of Omar and Osama Bin Laden, in an air strike by foreign forces in the southern province of Helmand. The Taliban statement described Dadullah as an obedient and loyal fighter. “It is clear that he (Hanif) has been interrogated under pressure or things have been added to what he has said,” the statement said. Pakistan has also rejected Hanif’s claims as “absurd”.