As I graphic’d, either way this is great news. The initials were that he was killed, then we heard he was captured, then I heard on the radio that he died during the airlift from wounds incurred during his capture, and now there are still reports of his not having shuffled off the mortal coil. Hopefully if he’s sitting there getting stitched up, someone is already scribbling down notes on what he knows.

QUETTA, Pakistan - Pakistani security forces critically wounded a top figure in the Taliban militia fighting U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, among six militants captured after a firefight near the border Monday, the army said.

Mansoor Dadullah, the brother of slain Taliban military commander Mullah Dadullah, and five others were challenged by security forces as they crossed from Afghanistan into Pakistan’s southwestern province of Baluchistan. They refused to stop and opened fire, said army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas.

“Security personnel returned fire. As a result all of them sustained injuries and all of them were captured,” Abbas said. “Dadullah was arrested alive but he is critically wounded.”

Earlier, a senior military official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists, said Dadullah had died of his wounds while being flown to a hospital with the other injured men.

Two Pakistani intelligence officials, declined to be named for the same reason, gave a different account of Dadullah’s capture, saying he was nabbed during a raid on a religious seminary in a neighboring district. It was not immediately possible to reconcile the differing accounts.

Dadullah’s capture comes amid growing Western pressure on Pakistan to crack down on Islamic militants launching attacks inside Afghanistan but increasingly destabilizing Pakistan itself.

I’m not surprised by shifting stories. Musharraf is still skating on very thin ice and it might look better for him to have been picked up on the road, instead of further raids on purported houses of worship. Whatever their foot-dragging or doubletalk, the Pakistanis do manage to get things done on occasion, and we should be glad.

As we’ve been soaked in the media with prophetic reports of future large-scale Taliban/Al Qaeda assaults in Afghanistan, I’m inclined to agree with Bryan over at Hot Air that anything that degrades their command structure and gets rid of someone with combat experience is a very good thing.

Others on this: Ace of Spades HQ | The Jawa Report | Jihad Watch | lgf |

This entry was posted on Monday, February 11th, 2008 at 12:24 PM and is filed under Pakistan, Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.