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      Islamabad (AP) - The Taliban's top military commander has been
arrested in a joint CIA-Pakistani operation in Pakistan in a major
victory against the insurgents as U.S. troops push into their
heartland in southern Afghanistan, officials said Tuesday.

      Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the group's No. 2 leader behind
Afghan Taliban founder Mullah Mohammad Omar and a close associate
of Osama bin Laden, was captured in the southern Pakistani port
city of Karachi, two Pakistani intelligence officers and a senior
U.S. official said.

      They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not
authorized to release such sensitive information.

      One Pakistani officer said Baradar was arrested 10 days ago with
the assistance of the United States and "was talking" to his
interrogators.


      Baradar is the most senior Afghan Taliban leader arrested since
the beginning of the Afghan war in 2001 following the Sept. 11
terror attacks in the United States.


      His capture represents a significant success for the
administration of President Barack Obama, which has vowed to kill
or seize Taliban and al-Qaida leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
It follows the ramping up of CIA missile strikes against militant
targets along the border between the two countries that have
reportedly killed many midlevel commanders.

      It was unclear how Baradar was tracked down. Pakistan's spy
agency has been accused in the past of protecting top Taliban
leaders believed sheltering in the country, frustrating Washington.
Moving against Baradar could signal that Islamabad increasingly
views the Afghan Taliban, or at least some of its members, as fair
game.

      There was also speculation that the arrest could be related in
some way to a new push by the United States and its NATO allies to
negotiate with moderate Afghan Taliban leaders as a way to end the
eight-year war in Afghanistan. Pakistan has an important role in
that process because of its close links with members of the
movement, which it supported before the Sept. 11 attacks.

      "If Pakistani officials had wanted to arrest him, they could
have done it at any time," said Sher Mohammad Akhud Zada, the
former governor of Afghanistan's Helmand province and a member of
the Afghan parliament. "Why did they arrest him now?"


      Baradar heads the Taliban's military council and was elevated in
the body after the 2006 death of military chief Mullah Akhtar
Mohammed Usmani. He is known to coordinate the movement's military
operations throughout the south and southwest of Afghanistan. His
area of direct responsibility stretches over Kandahar, Helmand,
Nimroz, Zabul and Uruzgan provinces.

      According to Interpol, Baradar was the deputy defense minister
in the Taliban regime that ruled Afghanistan until it was ousted in
the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

      Karachi is Pakistan's largest city and has been increasingly
cited as a possible hiding place for top Afghan Taliban commanders
in recent months. It has a large population of Pashtuns, the ethnic
group that makes up the Taliban, but it is on the Arabian Sea and
far from the Afghan border.

      A Taliban spokesman in Afghanistan told The Associated Press
that Baradar was still free, though he did not provide any
evidence.

      "We totally deny this rumor. He has not been arrested,"
Zabiullah Mujahid told the AP by telephone. He said the report was
Western propaganda aimed at undercutting the Taliban fighting
against an offensive in the southern Afghan town of Marjah, a
Taliban haven.

      "The Taliban are having success with our jihad. It is to try to
demoralize the Taliban who are on jihad in Marjah and all of
Afghanistan," he said.

      Word of Baradar's capture came as U.S. Marine and Afghan units
pressed deeper into Marjah, facing sporadic rocket and mortar fire
as they moved through suspected insurgent neighborhoods in the NATO
offensive to reclaim the town.


      U.S.-based global intelligence firm Stratfor said the reported
arrest was a "major development," but cautioned it may not have a
significant impact on the battlefield in Afghanistan.

      "It is unlikely that a single individual would be the umbilical
cord between the leadership council and the military commanders in
the field, particularly a guerrilla force such as the Taliban," it
said in an analysis soon after news broke of the arrest.

      In a written interview with Newsweek last year, Baradar said the
group did not see the point in reconciliation talks with the Afghan
government or Washington.

      "Our basic problem with the Americans is that they have
attacked our country," Baradar said. "They are offering talks,
hoping that the mujahedeen surrender before them. We see no benefit
for the country and Islam in such kind of talks."

      But Taliban expert Michael Semple said Baradar was known to be a
"pragmatist" who could be prepared to enter into some kind of
talks with the United States.

      "If he could get guarantees, he would be willing to
negotiate," said Semple, who was expelled from Afghanistan in 2007
by President Hamid Karzai for negotiating with midlevel Taliban
commanders when he worked for the European Union.

      After denying for years that Afghan Taliban were based in the
country, the Pakistani government and security agencies had little
reason to publicize the arrest of Baradar, which was first reported
by The New York Times.

      Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said only that
authorities had arrested a "number of people who are running away
from Afghanistan and coming to Pakistan" but would not confirm the
arrest.

      The Times said it learned of the operation against Baradar last
Thursday but delayed reporting it at the request of White House
officials who argued that publicizing it would end a valuable
intelligence-gathering effort by making Baradar's associates aware
of his capture. The newspaper said it decided to publish the news
after White House officials acknowledged Baradar's capture was
becoming widely known in the region.

      Associated Press writer Noor Khan in Kandahar and Kathy Gannon
in Islamabad contributed to this report.

Gallery

The Taliban's top military commander has been
arrested in a joint CIA-Pakistani operation in Pakistan in a major
victory against the insurgents as U.S. troops push into their
heartland in southern Afghanistan, officials said Tuesday.

Taliban's top military commander captured

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