Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, and Karachi, Pakistan -- A campaign against senior members of the Afghan Taliban has netted a second major figure, the "shadow governor" of a northern province who presided over a dramatic buildup of forces that took over entire districts and harried NATO troops, Afghan and Pakistani officials revealed Thursday.
Word of the arrest of Mullah Abdul Salam and a Taliban associate follows disclosure this week of the recent capture, also in Pakistan, of the Afghan Taliban's top military commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, whose influence has been described as second only to that of the movement's spiritual leader and supreme commander, Mullah Mohammed Omar.
Intelligence sources in Pakistan on Thursday also reported the arrest of three suspected Al Qaeda militants in the port city of Karachi a day earlier. Taken together, the cluster of arrests represents a sharp increase in cooperation by Pakistani authorities in pursuing Islamic extremists, particularly Afghan Taliban militants who have used Pakistani soil as a haven.
In Washington, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said the series of arrests, which he declined to discuss in detail, could also help "reverse the momentum" of the Taliban and force its fighters to reassess their loyalty to the insurgency.
"Between the concerted efforts that you're seeing in Pakistan and the concerted efforts that we are undertaking along with our Afghan partners in Afghanistan, the squeeze is being put to the Taliban," Morrell said. "Our hope is clearly that this is creating a certain amount of discontent, worry, turmoil within the organization."
Morrell also said that as more Afghan Taliban leaders are "picked up, taken out, killed, arrested -- whatever it may be," the security situation would improve.
Abdul Salam, the shadow governor of Kunduz province in Afghanistan's north, was arrested this month, said the officially appointed governor of Kunduz, Mohammed Omar. That was confirmed by Pakistani intelligence sources, who said the capture took place near the largely Pashtun city of Nowshera, in North-West Frontier Province.
"This is a big blow for the Taliban here," Gov. Omar said.
There was no indication that Abdul Salam's arrest was related to that of Baradar, but Taliban shadow governors, who are usually high-ranking military commanders, are thought to travel regularly to Pakistan for consultations with the movement's leadership council, known as the Quetta shura. Baradar was a senior member of the council.
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