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bobdina
09-11-2009, 01:19 PM
Pakistan arrests Swat Taliban leaders

ISLAMABAD (AP) -- Pakistan arrested the spokesman for the Taliban in the Swat Valley and four other senior commanders, the military said Friday, in the latest of several victories against militants in the country's northwestern region close to Afghanistan.

The arrests are a coup for the military, which had been criticized for failing to capture or kill any top Taliban leaders in a four-month offensive in the Swat Valley that cleared the insurgents from most of the one-time tourist haven.

The army announced the arrests on the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. Drawing attention to that fact, the military released photos of the two highest-ranking detainees - spokesman Muslim Khan and commander Mahmood Khan - in custody with the date printed in bold underneath.

The Swat offensive has somewhat reassured the West that Pakistan is committed to fighting militants hiding out in its rugged northwest who are blamed for plotting and carrying out attacks on U.S. and NATO forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

An army statement said the two Khans and commanders Fazle Ghaffar, Abdul Rehman and Sartaj Ali were arrested in the suburbs of Mingora, the Swat Valley's main city. It did not say when. The Khans had bounties of 10 million rupees ($121,000) on their heads, the army said.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik urged other commanders to surrender.

"This has been our policy from day one when we started the operation that there will be no negotiations with the terrorists," Malik said. "They have no other option. Either they get killed or get arrested."

The detainees were being interrogated and security forces were conducting operations based on information they had given, the army said.

Muslim Khan, 54, was an eloquent defender of militant Islam and frequently called local and foreign media to claim responsibility for attacks and threaten more. The white-bearded spokesman was also a very senior figure in the organization.

In an interview with The Associated Press in April, he said Osama bin Laden was welcome to stay in the valley.

Since the offensive, Khan - who lived for several years in the United States where he worked as house painter - had rarely been quoted by the media.

The army launched its offensive in the scenic valley in May after the Taliban seized control of the region following a two-year reign of terror in which they burned girls' schools and beheaded opponents.

Prior to the operations, the government struck a peace deal with the militants that allowed them to implement Islamic law there, but it quickly collapsed after the militants used it to advance into the neighboring Buner region, just 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the capital, Islamabad.

The military claims to have killed more than 1,800 insurgents in the offensive, which caused up to 2 million people to flee the valley and surrounding regions.

Most of the refugees have now returned, but the failure to capture the Taliban leadership had been a cause of concern for them. With clashes between the army and militants still breaking out in parts of the valley and occasional attacks by the Taliban, no one was willing to answer Friday when asked by an Associated Press reporter for their reaction to the arrests.

The Taliban's top commander in Swat, Maulana Fazlullah, is still on the run, though in July the army claimed to have wounded him in an airstrike. There were also unconfirmed reports in June that another senior commander, Shah Doran, had been killed.

While it is clear Pakistan still faces a major militant threat, there have been positive developments recently.

Opinion surveys show the public has turned from militancy and is supportive of the military action in Swat - a shift attributed to anger at the militants for reneging on the peace deal and a video of them flogging a woman in public they had accused of adultery.

Last month, the head of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Meshsud, was killed in a CIA missile strike close to the Afghan border. Pakistan considered him its No. 1 internal threat. Several weeks later, authorities announced they had arrested that group's spokesman, Maulvi Umar.

Also Friday, a police officer said a Swede was arrested last month close to the tribal regions on suspicion of links to al-Qaida. The man, named Mehdi-Muhammed Ghezali, was detained along with 11 other foreigners, the officer said on condition of anonymity.

A Swedish man with that name was arrested in Pakistan and held in Guantanamo Bay until his release in 2004.

Swedish authorities said they had no information of any arrests of Swedish citizens in Pakistan.