Key Afghan Taliban leader arrested in northwestern Pakistan

A key Afghan Taliban leader has been arrested in northwestern Pakistan, that nation’s intelligence sources said Monday, the fourth top Taliban figure to be seized in Pakistan in the last month.

Mullah Abdul Kabir was arrested last week, the sources said. They would not disclose where, but CNN and Fox News reported that he was captured in Nowshera, a largely Pashtun city near Peshawar.

During the Taliban regime, Kabir was a finance minister and governor of Nangarhar province. He is believed to have played a significant role in the insurgency’s operations in eastern Afghanistan.

Kabir’s arrest provides further evidence of a change of course for the Pakistani government. Officials here have been reluctant to pursue Afghan Taliban leaders who use Pakistan as a sanctuary and base from which to launch attacks on U.S. and NATO forces battling militants in Afghanistan.

Pakistani security forces recently captured Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Afghan Taliban’s second in command and the insurgency’s military operations chief. The arrest is regarded as the most significant of a Taliban leader since the war to root out the insurgents began in 2001.

Baradar’s arrest was followed by seizures of Taliban shadow governors for northern Afghanistan’s Kunduz and Baghlan provinces.

Washington officials have hailed the recent arrests as indication of growing Pakistani cooperation with the U.S. in tracking down Afghan Taliban leaders hiding in Pakistan. Speaking to reporters in Islamabad this week, Richard C. Holbrooke, U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, called Baradar’s arrest “a tremendous event. It’s a real achievement for Pakistani intelligence with American collaboration.”

News of Kabir’s arrest came as police investigated a suicide bombing in the Swat Valley city of Mingora that killed seven people and wounded 37. The bomber detonated explosives near a military convoy at a busy intersection, police said.

The Swat Valley has seen sporadic suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism since a Pakistani military offensive last summer drove Taliban militants from the region.

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