Senior Taliban Official Nabbed

Feb. 20, 2002 -- A senior former Taliban official reportedly was captured in southern Afghanistan today, as Afghan Cabinet ministers probed deeper into the mysterious killing of the interim minister for civil aviation and tourism.

Mullah Mohammad Chamkani, a former adviser to reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, was captured near Kandahar by U.S. Marines and their Afghan allies, a local Afghan tribal leader told Reuters today.

Following a tip, U.S. and Afghan troops today raided a southern Afghan house, where they found Chamkani, according to Reuters. Another senior Taliban official, Mullah Abdul Mannan, was believed to be with him at the time of the raid but he escaped, according to a local tribal leader.

The capture came as Afghanistan's interim Justice Minister Abdul Rahim Karimi today said a team investigating the killing of the interim minister for civil aviation and tourism, Abdul Rehman, had yet to find proof that three suspects detained in Afghanistan were involved in Rehman's death.

"So far nobody has been proven as the real killer," Karimi told Reuters. "Once we specify the real culprits, then [interim Prime Minister Hamid] Karzai will take the final decision for the punishment."

Although initial reports said Rehman was killed by an angry crowd of hajis — or pilgrims — at Kabul airport, Karzai later dismissed the reports, naming high-ranking officials within his administration as suspects in what he called a killing for "personal reasons."

But speaking to reporters in Kabul today, interim Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah said the hostility of the hajis at the airport did in fact play a role in Rehman's killing.

Seemingly contradicting Karzai's earlier statements, Abdullah said the attack was not part of a premeditated plot.

Two senior Cabinet leaders in the interim administration, Mir Wais Sadeq, the minister of labor and social affairs, and Abdul Khaliq Fazal, the minister of public works, are heading the investigation into Rehman's killing.

In addition to the three suspects detained in Afghanistan, three other suspects were believed to have boarded a flight to Saudi Arabia. The Karzai administration hopes the Saudi authorities will send the three men back to Afghanistan to face justice.

Most of the suspects are members of the Jamiat-e-Islami faction, led by former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani. Rehman was once a member.

Myers Denies Shift in Military Mission

Foreign Minister Abdullah's apparent dismissal of Karzai's initial claims on the Rehman killing has raised questions in the international community about the solidarity of Afghanistan's interim administration as factional feuds have broken out across the country.

In Kandahar today, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, denied an earlier New York Times report that U.S. troops, in an apparent shift of military targets, had defended troops loyal to Karzai against rival Afghan factions.

"The goals haven't changed, and that's to eliminate the Taliban and al Qaeda," Myers told reporters today during a visit to the U.S.-controlled base at Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.

According to the Times report, U.S. bombers were called in over the weekend after a patrol of local Afghan government forces came under fire outside the eastern Afghan town of Khost. The bombing, the paper concluded, was an indication that U.S. forces had shifted from their strategy of targeting only Taliban and al Qaeda pockets of resistance.

Myers insisted that was not the case. Despite talk of a "change in policy, there is no change in policy," he said. The U.S. mission in Afghanistan would continue until pockets of Taliban and al Qaeda resistance were crushed, Myers added.

Tensions in the North

Nearly two months after Karzai took office in Kabul, the security situation in Afghanistan continues to alarm the international community.

A senior police officer was shot and wounded in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif today when three men belonging to Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum's Junbish-i-Millie faction walked into a police station and opened fire.

Although Dostum was given the post of deputy defense minister in the Karzai administration, there has been growing evidence in recent days that the Uzbek warlord is trying to destabilize the delicate security situation in and around Mazar-e-Sharif.

Although security forces loyal to Kabul are meant to be neutral, in reality, Karzai's troops across the country are often dominated by various tribal groups, thereby increasing the risks of retaliatory attacks by rival ethnic groups.

In acknowledgement of the tough security challenges facing him, Karzai has called for the formation of a united Afghan national army as well as an extension of the mandate covering international peacekeepers in Afghanistan. Under the current mandate, a maximum of 4,700 international peacekeepers are based in and around Kabul.

Although international troops are largely welcomed in Afghanistan, a recent incident involving the alleged killing of an unarmed Afghan civilian by British paratroopers in Kabul has caused some local resentment over the presence of the international peacekeepers.

Italian Police Nab Moroccans

In other developments:

The Pentagon clarified its misinformation policy in a statement, which read: "Under no circumstances will the office or its contractors knowingly or deliberately disseminate false information to the American or foreign media or public." Critics had feared the Office of Strategic Influence, set up after the Sept. 11 attacks, would deliberately spread false information at home and abroad.

Italian police arrested four Moroccans in possession of large quantities of a suspicious chemical and maps of Rome highlighting the location of the U.S. Embassy. While the U.S. Embassy in Rome complimented the Italian police for their "excellent work," officials refused to comment on the incident since an investigation was under way.

Turkish police have detained three suspected members of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, according to a report in the state-run Anatolian News Agency. The suspects were Jordanian, Saudi and Syrian nationals and were detained in eastern Turkey while trying to illegally enter the country from neighboring Iran, the report said.

Lawyers for the families of an Australian and two Britons being held at a U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington claiming their clients' detentions without trial violated the U.S. Constitution. David Hicks of Australia and Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul from Britain were detained in connection with the U.S. military in campaign in Afghanistan.