by JUAN COLE
The NYT broke the news that the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence, with the cooperation of US intelligence, captured Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar a few days ago. Baradar, the number 2 man in the Old Taliban led by Mulla Umar, is the equivalent of military chief of staff for the organization. Depending on how much he is willing to reveal about the whereabouts and operational plans of the other Taliban commanders, his capture could be devastating for the Old Taliban.
His capture shows just how abject former vice president Dick Cheney’s attacks on the Obama administration for its handling of terrorism are. And that Joe Biden and others kept the arrest secret, in order to allow further operations against Taliban leaders in Karachi, shows a discipline that Bush and Cheney never had. They were always happy to prematurely release details of ongoing investigations to get a political bump, even if it meant allowing terrorists to escape.
Mullah Baradar planned out the spring-summer, 2008, campaign aimed at overthrowing the Karzai government, called “The Object Lesson” (`ibrat).
In fall of 2008 there were rumors of Saudi-brokered negotiations between the Karzai government and the Taliban. Mullah Baradar denied that any such meetings had taken place, though some reports placed him at the Dubai round of talks.
He appears to have been absolutely enraged by President Obama’s decision in February, 2009, to send 21,000 further US troops to Afghanistan. He announced extensive operations to harry and attack the foreign troops through summer, 2009. By this time he was emerging as the operational leader of the Old Taliban, perhaps in some ways supplanting Mullah Omar. He also released a pamphlet on a Taliban code of conduct that discouraged attacks on civilians (a pamphlet completely ignored by the Pakistani ‘Taliban’ led by members of the Mahsud tribe in South Waziristan).
Juan Cole for more
(Submitted by reader)