Islamabad: Pakistani security forces captured one of the Taliban's three most senior leaders just hours after US Vice President Dick Cheney's unannounced visit to Pakistan earlier this week, a senior security official and Taliban sources said.
The capture of Mullah Obaidullah Akhund marked the first Pakistan arrest of a senior leader of the Islamist militia since it was driven from power in Afghanistan in 2001 when thousands of its fighters fled into Pakistan.
The sources told Reuters that Akhund, the third most senior member of the Taliban's 10-member leadership council, was arrested late on Monday in the southwest city of Quetta.
Government and military spokesmen denied the arrest had been made—or said they had no knowledge of it—when asked by Reuters, but the story was also front page news in Dawn, a leading Pakistani daily, today.
''Mullah Omar's deputy Obaidullah captured'' was the headline in a report that was also sourced to an unnamed official.
Aside from being on the leadership council headed by Mullah Mohammad Omar, Akhund was also defence minister in the Taliban government before it fell.
The arrest comes at a time when the Bush administration is facing a welter of scepticism from Democrats, the American media and several think tanks over Pakistan's role as an ally in the war on terrorism.
Cheney had asked Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to do more to stop al Qaeda rebuilding from safe havens in Pakistani tribal lands and step up efforts to thwart a spring offensive by the Taliban against Afghan and NATO troops.
As defence minister, Akhund he was believed to have liaised closely with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence during the years when the Taliban was in power in Kabul and could count on Pakistani support.
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