More Taliban Arrests in Pakistan
On the heels of the Mullah Baradar arrest, Sami Yousafzai and Mark Hosenball report that the Taliban’s shadow governor in Kunduz, Mullah Abdul Salam, has been arrested in Pakistan. They’ve got Taliban sources saying this:
“„According to the Taliban sources, at the time of his capture Mullah Salam was preparing to travel to meet Mullah Baradar. Some sources suggested that the arrests of the two insurgent leaders might be linked, though this could not be confirmed in Washington.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reports that the Baradar arrest came after U.S. intelligence successfully tracked Baradar’s communications. Whether that has anything to do with Newsweek’s Sunday report about a massive communications surveillance windfall after an al-Qaeda operative was detained in Oman — well, that I don’t know, but it’s an intriguing possibility.