US and Pakistani agents were interrogating the Taliban’s former defence minister on Saturday in the hope that he can help them hunt down other militant leaders, security officials said. Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, who had a one-million-dollar bounty on his head posted by the US Central Intelligence Agency, was arrested with four other suspects on Wednesday in Quetta.Pakistani officials said Akhund, a key aide to Taliban supremo Mullah Mohammad Omar and an insurgent commander in southern Afghanistan, was flown to the capital Islamabad by helicopter after his capture. “He is being interrogated by a joint team of Pakistani and US officials in Islamabad,” a senior security official said on condition of anonymity. He did not specify which US agency the officials were from.
“Obaidullah is an important figure in the militant network and the authorities will want to know the strength of the group and its tentacles in Pakistan,” the official added.
Akhund was arrested at a Quetta hotel on the basis of “very solid” intelligence, officials said. Plain-clothes agents picked him up when he arrived at the hotel where the other four suspects were already staying. “It is a major breakthrough and we hope he can lead to the arrest of a few other of the most wanted Taliban commanders,” the security official said. He did not say which other Taliban militants were under scrutiny.
A Taliban spokesman on Friday denied that Akhund had been captured, saying that he was still in Afghanistan. The Pakistani government has yet to officially confirm the arrest. Officials said Akhund would likely have played a key part in Taliban’s spring offensive. A senior government official said there was a greater focus now on Balochistan to flush out Taliban militants hiding in the region. “The law enforcement set-up in the province has been beefed up in the past few months and there is a greater intelligence focus on the Taliban activities in the area.”