The motivations behind Afghan Taliban leaders arrest in Pakistan

15^th March 2010

The Christian Science Monitor reported that Pakistani officials had arrested seven out of fifteen Members of the Afghan Taliban leadership council. Among the arrested leaders were, Mullah Abdul Ghani Beradar including many others who have still not been confirmed.2 Since the ousting of the Taliban regime in 2001, Pakistan has been playing a double game, protecting the Taliban at one end while displaying their role, albeit an ambiguous one at that, as a frontline state in the war on terror. The Afghan government has repeatedly told Pakistan that the leadership of the Afghan Taliban and its operations are based Pakistani terrain. But Pakistani authorities continuously denied and ignored these claims until the recent arrests which prompted Pakistani officials to accept the fact that senior Taliban leaders did exist within their boundaries. As a result, Pakistan is beginning to acknowledge that time has come for them to considering taking serious actions against these militant networks residing in their country. These arrests clearly show that the Taliban have in the past and are currently using Pakistan as a base to launch attacks in Afghanistan. Now the question that arises from this incident is twofold; firstly, why has Pakistan been so reluctant to investigate reports given to them from Afghanistan that had confirmed the existence of the Taliban bases in Pakistan? And secondly, is there significance in the timing of these arrests and the proposition of the reconciliation and reintegration initiative planned by Afghan President, Hamid Karzai in which dialogue and reprieve are core components in possibly striking a deal with between his administration and the Taliban leaders? (Full Article, file type (pdf) 107 KB)