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Officials: Captured Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar is providing 'useful information'

BY Richard Sisk

DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Wednesday, February 17th 2010, 4:00 AM




WASHINGTON - The captured No. 2 Taliban commander, in the hands of none-too-gentle Pakistani intelligence agents, is already giving up "useful information," U.S. and Afghan sources said Tuesday. "It's certainly a breakthrough and I think it could be a turning point" in the Afghan war, James Dobbins, former U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan, said of last week's arrest of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar in Pakistan.

"This is a major terrorist who has been at the core of Taliban operations for years" as a friend since boyhood of Taliban chieftain Mullah Mohammed Omar, a U.S. counterterror official said of Baradar, who also oversaw the Taliban's drug and protection rackets. The importance of his capture, in a joint operation by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency and the CIA, was underlined by the Taliban's insistence it never happened.

"We totally deny this rumor," Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told The Associated Press by telephone. Mujahid said the U.S. was boasting of the capture "to try to demoralize the Taliban who are on jihad in Marja," the center of Taliban drug-running operations in southern Helmand Province that is under attack by U.S. Marines and allied forces. The demoralization part could happen. "Having him off the battlefield means the near-term disruption of plotting against coalition forces" in Marja and elsewhere, the counterterror official said.

"It must also be a severe psychological blow to the group's senior ranks." But the official warned the U.S. advantage could be brief. "They've proven resilient before," the official said. "That's why it's critical to keep turning up the heat on them." Pakistan's government was reluctant to acknowledge that Baradar is in custody, and it was not clear over the long run whether he will be held in Pakistan or handed over to the U.S. Pakistan has been an intermittent ally of the U.S. in the eight-year war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and the relationship has been problematic for Pakistani politicians with an electorate that has become increasingly anti-American.

But Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.), who is visiting Pakistan, said Baradar's arrest could signal the Islamabad authorities have now decided the Taliban pose a threat to them as well as the U.S. "The level of violence that has been brought by these insurgents has convinced the government of Pakistan and Pakistani people that their country is threatened and that this fight is their fight," Kerry said on CBS' "This Morning."

rsisk@nydailynews.com

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A US Marine guards a combat outpost in Trikh Nawar, a poppy farmland area on the northeastern outskirts of Marjah. A senior British commander has warned it could take weeks to wrest control of the Afghan town because of determined Taliban resistance, as NATO said four more soldiers had been killed in the operation. (AFP/Patrick Baz)




Afghan National Army soldiers take part in an exercise near a military base in Gereshk City, Helmand province on February 17. Duration: 00: 38(AFP)




A US army Blackhawk helicopter lands near a marine combat outpost in Trikh Nawar, a poppy farmland area on the northeastern outskirts of Marjah.
(AFP/Patrick Baz)




A U.S. Marine dog handler stands with his bomb-sniffing working dog as British medics receive him at a military hospital at the end of a helicopter medevac mission of the U.S. Army's Task Force Pegasus, Camp Bastion, Helmand province, Afghanistan, Wednesday Feb. 17, 2010. The lifesaving dog, which had stopped functioning well, according to his handler, was evacuated along with a wounded Afghan civilian by TF Pegasus.
(AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)




Britain's Prince Charles (C) speaks with members of the Army Air Corps and their families ahead of their deployment to Afghanistan during a visit to Dishforth Air base, northern England February 18, 2010.
REUTERS/Nigel Roddis




U.S. Marines with NATO forces keep vigil as Marines and Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers setup a joint military base in north of Marjah, city of Helmand province, Thursday Feb. 18, 2010.
(AP Photo/Jerome Starkey, Pool)




An Afghan National Army (ANA) soldier stands guard as a suspected Taliban sits blindfolded and hands tied on the ground in Marjah, city of Helmand province, Thursday Feb. 18, 2010.
(AP Photo/Jerome Starkey, Pool)