Ex-Taliban Figure Is Questioned About Kidnappings

Pakistani authorities said Saturday that they were interrogating a former Taliban commander arrested on suspicion of masterminding the late October kidnapping of three U.N. election workers in Afghanistan.

Akbar Agha, who reportedly led Taliban forces in 1996 for 11 months, was taken into custody in Karachi last week, officials said.

Agha formed his own group, Jaish-e-Muslimeen, or Army of Muslims, in 2001, after being removed from his Taliban post because of differences with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, officials said.

The group allegedly kidnapped the U.N. workers -- one woman from Ireland, another from Kosovo and a Filipino -- in Kabul. Agha reportedly received $1.5 million in ransom for their release late last month. The United Nations denied at the time that any ransom had been paid.

Two of Agha’s lieutenants, Mulla Ishaq and Habib Aga, went underground after the release of the hostages.

Another Jaish-e-Muslimeen spokesman, Mullah Mohammed Ishaq, told a private television channel via satellite phone that the detainee was not Akbar Agha and had no connection to Jaish-e-Muslimeen. But Pakistani authorities insisted that they had the right man.

No decision has been made about whether Agha will be tried in Pakistan or handed over to Afghanistan, officials said. It was unclear when he had crossed the border into Pakistan.