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| February 27, 2006 | Monday | Muharram 28, 1427 |
‘Afghan intelligence on Omar unreliable’
ISLAMABAD, Feb 26: Intelligence provided by Afghanistan on where Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and his associates might be hiding in Pakistan is unreliable and has yielded no results, a security official has said.
A purported Taliban spokesman claimed the Taliban leaders were in Afghanistan. “We do not have any leader in Pakistan,” Mohammed Hanif told the Associated Press in Pakistan by telephone. “They (Afghan officials) want to defame our resistance by saying that Taliban leaders are in Pakistan.”
The Pakistani official, who is familiar with the investigations launched by the government after receiving the information reportedly during Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s visit to the country, said on Saturday the Afghan leader had also claimed that Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan, but given no details on his whereabouts.
“Karzai’s intelligence was kept secret and we acted swiftly, but after thorough checks we found out that he had faulty, outdated and unreliable intelligence. It was quite frustrating that we found nothing after so much effort,” said the official.
An Afghan official said President Karzai had also shared intelligence on the locations of alleged terrorist training camps along the border and in Pakistani cities, which Kabul believes are behind a recent wave of suicide attacks in Afghanistan.
The Pakistani official said Afghanistan had given the names of more than 30 people and claimed that about 100 to 150 other unidentified suspects were hiding in Pakistan.
He accused Afghanistan of sharing poor intelligence and “throwing mud on Pakistan”.
Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah said Afghanistan had shared with Pakistan “whatever we considered was credible intelligence. They promised they would look into it.”
He said the information included “the presence of Taliban leaders, the presence of training camps and other security-related issues.”—-AP
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