US Special Forces Arrest A Leader Of Taliban Intelligence Service

The US special forces have arrested deputy chief of the Taliban intelligence service Abdul Haq Wasiq in the Afghan province of Ghazni, south-west of Kabul. According to Peshawar-based (Pakistan) Afghan Islamic Press agency the operation was swift -- the special task forces landed from helicopters near the town of Muqur and arrested Wasiq. The Pakistani secret services also continue searching for Afghan and foreign terrorists who crossed the border. Deputy interior minister Tanzim Noorani has declared that law-enforcement bodies do not know where international terrorist No.1 Osama bin Laden is now and whether he has crossed the Pakistani border. Head of the anti-terror coalition's united press centre in Islamabad Kenton Keith said last week that about 7,000 Taliban and foreign mercenaries had been arrested in Afghanistan. Now, they are being interrogated. It is not known yet whether there are top leaders of the Taliban or al-Qaida among the arrested. In the past few days the Pakistani press have reported about three centres allegedly organised by the CIA for interrogating the Taliban arrested in Afghanistan. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claimed that such interrogations were being conducted by US marines at the Kandahar air base, and the camp set up there might accommodate 500 arrested people.