KABUL, Oct. 3 — A senior Pakistani official has outrightly rejected the U.S. and western media reports about the presence of senior Afghan Taliban leaders in Balouchistan.
Pakistani newspapers quoted Mohammad Aslam Raisani, chief minister of Baluchistan province, on Thursday that reports about presence of Mullah Mohammad Omar and other Afghan Taliban leaders in Balouchistan’s provincial capital Quetta or its suburbs are “baseless and just a rumor.”
The rejection came on the heels of an angry uproar in Pakistan over a recent report in the London-based newspaper, The Sunday Times, saying that U.S. officials believed that the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, and other leaders of his group are hiding in Quetta city of Balouchistan.
Quetta and its suburban areas in Pakistan’s southwestern Balouchistan province are close to Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province, which is considered to be the heartland of Afghan Taliban militants.
The British newspaper said the Quetta Shura (council) of Afghan Taliban, including the inner core of Afghan Taliban leaders, is based in Quetta from where it regulates Jihadist activities in southern Afghanistan.
“Quetta Shura is high on Washington’s list,” U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Anne W. Patterson, said on Wednesday.
“In the past, we focused on al-Qaida because they were a threat to us. The Quetta Shura mattered less to us because we had no troops in the region,” Patterson said in an interview with The Washington Post.
U.S. officials, according to The Sunday Times, maybe consider drone strikes or commando action in Quetta to crack down the Afghan insurgent leaders.
It said U.S. officials had reports that Islamabad contemplated to shift the Taliban leaders from Quetta to Karachi where it would be difficult for the United States to carry out drone attacks.
The change of mind in upper U.S. power echelon follows a spate of Taliban attack in Afghanistan, particularly in the southern provinces, in which heavy losses were inflicted on the international coalition forces.
Two major U.S. and British operations in Helmand, bordering Pakistan’s Balouchistan province, in recent months failed to create any significant dint in Taliban’s might.
Rather, the insurgents have got more hardened in their resilience, escalating their operations to new swaths of Afghanistan’s territory.
Similarly, Michael Semple, a former UN official who formerly worked in Afghanistan and is now based in Islamabad, describes Quetta-based Afghan refugee camps as a “great reserve army” for the Taliban. He claimed the Taliban have support from the mosques and madrassas (seminaries) in the area.
Raisani says if Washington carries out drone attack in Balouchistan, the backlash of the possible attacks would make the supply line for NATO forces in Afghanistan highly insecure.
NATO is carrying out logistic supplies for its troops in Afghanistan through Pakistan. One of the two routes for these supplies passes through Balouchistan, particularly Quetta.
After scores of attacks on supply convoys in recent months, the international coalition has begun to explore alternate routes for its supplies.
Washington has already signed an agreement with Moscow under which military supplies will flow to Afghanistan through the Russian soil. Other Pakistani officials have also aired views similar to those of Raisani about possible U.S. attacks in Quetta.
Major General Salim Nawaz, the chief of Frontier Corps (FC) paramilitary forces in Balouchistan, told media the other day that if Washington had any evidence about presence of Mullah Omar and other Taliban leaders in Quetta it should share with Pakistan.
Pakistan, he said, is capable to take action on its own. He ruled out the presence of Taliban leaders in Quetta or the existence of Quetta Shura.
Earlier, Pakistan’s interior minister, Rehman Malik, had ruled out presence of the Afghan Taliban leaders, including Mullah Omar, in Quetta.
Last week, Pakistani newspapers quoted him as pledging to keep the United States out of Balouchistan “at all costs.”