In May, we exclusively broke the story that Taliban leader, Mullah Omar had been taken into the custody of Pakistan’s Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

Since that time, there has been multiple reporting that supports our exclusive, including Colonel Oliver North and Afghan Television.

And while Newsweek nibbled around the edges of the story two weeks after us, they have now come out with a new article stating:

Taliban sources say Pakistan uses catch-and-release tactics to keep insurgent leaders in line. All told, the ISI has picked up some 300 Taliban commanders and officials, the sources say. Before being freed, the detainees are subjected to indoctrination sessions to remind them that they owe their freedom and their absolute loyalty to Pakistan, no matter what. As one example, the sources mention Abdul Qayum Zakir, who spent five years at Guantánamo and is now the group’s top military commander. They say the Pakistanis detained him and about a dozen other Taliban commanders and shadow governors earlier this year, soon after having picked up the insurgency’s No. 2, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, only to set them free several days later after making sure their priorities meshed with Pakistan’s.

Some leading Taliban even suspect that Mullah Mohammed Omar, the leader and symbol of their jihad, may also be in ISI custody. He has appeared in no videos and issued no verifiable audio messages or written statements since he disappeared into the Kandahar mountains on the back of Baradar’s motorcycle in late 2001. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the ISI arrested us all in one day,” says a former cabinet minister. “We are like sheep the Pakistanis can round up whenever they want.

(more…)

*** Updated and clarified

In a recent post, respected milblogger Bill Roggio of The Long War Journal had this to say about Taliban leader Mullah Omar’s status, a story we have been discussing since May:

Mullah Omar is thought to be in a safehouse in Karachi, under the protection of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate.

This comes more than two months after Mr. Roggio made the following statement on his Twitter account:

Since I have been asked this quite I (sic) bit, there is no indication that Taliban supremo Mullah Omar has been captured.

We believe we have a semantic difference with Roggio: “captured” or “protected,” why hasn’t the U.S. gotten access to Omar?   (more…)

Ah, the lefties think they smell blood in the water and the long knives have come out.  Not only are they attacking Andrew Breitbart, they’re going after past stories on the BIG sites, most notably my piece on the capture of Mullah Omar by the Pakistanis that I posted back in May.

According to blog sites Instaputz and Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion, because NATO claims to have intercepted a letter from Omar, it proves Omar is still on the loose!

Really?  That settles it right there?

Let’s set aside for a moment that even Newsweek has reported that the Taliban are in “turmoil” because Mullah Omar has disappeared, and focus on what the Times of India has to say about this recently intercepted letter:

The letter, if genuine, appears to be a departure from an earlier directive that urged [the] Taliban not to harm captives.

“Whenever any official, soldier, contractor or worker of the slave government is captured, these prisoners cannot be attacked or harmed,” said the August 2009 code of conduct, attributed to Omar.

So, based on Bartholomew and Media Matters, who both picked up the meme from something called Instaputz, we’re to believe that Omar is not only free, but that he has done a complete 180 from eleven months ago and now doesn’t care how many Afghans get splashed?  In fact, he’s actively encouraging the Taliban to toss out last summer’s “Code of Conduct” and slaughter them?  I guess with Instaputz, Bartholomew, and Media Matters on the scene, the rest of the milblogging community can finally hang up their cleats.  The cavalry has arrived! (more…)

DAVID GREGORY:  Our guest today on Meet the Press, CIA Director Leon Panetta.  Welcome, sir.

PANETTA:  Good Morning, Tim.  I heard you’d passed away. Glad you’re back.

GREGORY:  Uh, thanks.  How do you see the Afghan struggle playing out?

PANETTA:  Well, my wife insists on a wall covering, but I prefer a rug, say a Turkestan Kunduz in the Persian style.  We may need a mediator.

GREGORY:  Sir, would you embed journalists in CIA special ops teams?

PANETTA:  I resent that question, Tim.  I’m a happily married man.

GREGORY:  Sorry.  Do you employ Muslims at Langley, sir?

PANETTA:  I do, Tim.  I chose muslin with cheery Wide Ruffles® for my office windows.  I also ordered muslin backdrops for videographic contrast in our interrogation rooms.

GREGORY:  The ”ticking time bomb” scenario, sir. You capture a terrorist after he’s hidden a nuke in New York.  Now what? (more…)

One month ago we broke the exclusive story of Mullah Omar’s capture.

Additional confirmations have come from The Jawa Report, Oliver North, Milblogger Baba Tim, Blackfive.net, and even The Nation.

Then, two weeks ago, Newsweek published a report that the Taliban is in serious turmoil because Mullah Omar is MIA.

Today, Iranian State Television reports that the Pakistanis are indeed harboring Mullah Omar.

Mullah Abdul Salam Hanafi, a former senior member of the Taliban and governor of central Urozgan Province under the Taliban regime, is quoted as saying:

Pakistani security forces are harboring the fugitive Taliban leader, Mullah Omar in Karachi.

As the tempo of Omar stories increases, so does the pressure on Pakistan and its Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), as well as the Obama administration and the CIA to deal with the Omar issue.

(more…)

On Friday, Newsweek “We Are All Socialists Now” Magazine published an article entitled, “Taliban in Turmoil.”  In it they report:

Dissension has broken out in the top ranks of Afghanistan’s Taliban. The group has muddled along without an operational head since February, when Mullah Mohammed Omar’s second in command, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, was arrested in Karachi, Pakistan… But now a claimant to Baradar’s position has emerged—and at least some senior Taliban chiefs are seriously questioning whether he should have the job.

We reported this a full two weeks ago, but let’s not let that get in the way of our enjoyment of the Newsweek piece.

Gone walkabout: Mullah Omar

The claimant is Mullah Gul Agha Akhund, “an in-law and long term confidant of Mullah Omar’s.”  Apparently, senior officials —including Omar’s top military commander, Abdul Qayum Zakir— are skeptical of Gul Agha’s claim to power.  What’s more, Gul Agha’s claim is sowing doubt and confusion throughout the Taliban’s ranks.

That can’t be good for the bad guys. (more…)

The Power Line blog has a post this morning on a surprising honest review in the Washington Post of the new book, Necessary Secrets. From the Power Line post:

The review is by Leonard Downie, Jr., who was the Post’s executive editor until 2008. Downie is obviously uneasy with Schoenfeld’s view that editors and reporters at the New York Times should be prosecuted and imprisoned for revealing two of the Bush administration’s antiterrorism programs – the warrantless intercept program for monitoring calls to the U.S. by foreign terrorists and the program though which the international financial transactions of terrorists were secretly tracked.

The exposure of these programs by the fearless reporters and editors at the Times unquestionably contributed to the prolonged detention of its reporter, David Rohde, because we lost the tools for finding to a kidnap victim in the tribal areas of Pakistan.  For that very reason the Times was forced to find “outside the box” options to try and gain Rohde’s freedom and apparently one of those options involved hiring civilian contractors who had contacts and access into the denied areas of the North West Frontier. Here is a quote from the first story the Times published on the subject: (more…)

From the noted miliblogging site Free Range International comes this confirmation of Big Government and Big Journalism’s exclusive story by Brad Thor about the capture by Pakistani authorities of Mullah Omar:

Which brings me to my final topic and it is not something Americans should be happy about. I have been hearing for weeks rumors about the detention of this guy:

I have heard about this from both prominent Afghans and from a source from the USG who has impeccable credentials and has never been wrong in the past. The media story is here and that story is that the Pakistan ISI has Mullah Omar under house arrest, that our government knows this but for some reason wants to keep it a secret. I need to stress that not everyone I have contacted about this story has heard these rumors and a few important, well informed milbloggers flat out do not believe them. Regardless this story has legs and if it is true there is a huge huge problem. That problem is very simple – there should be no doubt about what happens when an allied intelligence service gets their hands on Mullah Omar. There is nothing to discuss, nothing to think through, nothing to spin, there only this; give him to us. Immediately. End of negotiation. There should be no question on the part of the USG about what to do with this dirtbag either. He is an unlawful enemy combatant and needs to be detained and held for trial by military tribunal. There is no other conceivable option. If this story proves true, and I think it is, what the hell is going on back in DC? This isn’t a game, dammit, it’s war and needs to be treated as such.

Late this afternoon,  Lt. Colonel Oliver North confirmed that Taliban leader and Osama bin Laden ally, Mullah Mohammed Omar has been captured. The exclusive news of Omar’s capture was broken by Big Government and Big Journalism Monday evening.

According to Colonel North, Omar was picked up in Karachi on March 27th by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) who placed him under house arrest in what they call “community care.”

Per North’s sources, “[Omar] has since been transferred to a secret ISI lock-up under the Pakistani euphemism: “institutional care.”

North goes on to state, “According to several reports, all of this information was confirmed to U.S. officials by a senior Pakistani military officer ‘several weeks ago.’” A fact also broken in Monday’s Big Government exclusive.

Last weekend, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton created a “diplomatic firestorm” when she indicted Pakistani cooperation with the U.S. in the hunt for Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives. Said Clinton, “I believe somewhere in this government are people who know where Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda is (sic), where Mullah Omar and the leadership of the Afghan Taliban is (sic)…”

North hopes the Secretary was “dissembling,” because intelligence sources here in the U.S. and Afghanistan have informed him that Pakistani officials “know exactly where Mullah Omar is: in the hands of the ISI.” Driving the point home, North added, “This should not be news to the U.S. Secretary of State.”

(more…)

Common Sense: Obama, Karzai & the Stench

Washington, DC – The two presidents – Karzai and Obama – were on stage together in the East Room of the White House for forty minutes on May 12. They each talked about how they had differed in the past and how committed they are to going forward together. Both leaders expressed great hope in their mutual “quest for peace” and the forthcoming “Peace Jirga” or “reconciliation talks” to be held in Kabul at the end of this month. Neither leader – nor any of the journalists present – mentioned a “cease fire” or the unseen skunk at their picnic: Taliban leader, Mullah Omar.

Mullah Mohammed Omar, secretive head of Afghanistan’s Taliban movement, is one of the most wanted men on Earth. His sanguinary regime sheltered Osama bin-Laden’s Al Qaeda as it prepared for the 9-11-01 attacks. The U.S. government’s “Rewards for Justice” program has a standing offer of “up to 10 million dollars” for information resulting in his capture or confirmed death because he “represents a continuing threat to America and her allies.” Now, thanks to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), Mullah Omar may be a key factor in the upcoming “Peace Talks” trumpeted by Messer’s Obama and Karzai at their joint White House press conference. (more…)

Not surprisingly, the country’s oldest continuously published magazine, The Nation, is turning a jaundiced eye toward Brad Thor’s explosive scoop that the notorious Mullah Omar has been captured. Originally an abolitionist broadsheet, The Nation has evolved into the most radical leftist publication in the U.S.; among its more notable moments was the publication in 1966 of the Cloward-Piven strategy for social destabilization.

In that light, consider Jeremy Scahill’s recent screed, “(Not) Much Ado About Mullah Omar.” While Scahill might think it’s good journalism to bury the lead, we don’t.  So let’s get right to it, shall we?

In his rush to criticize Brad Thor’s reporting that Mullah Omar has been captured, he waits until the middle of his piece before admitting:

I wouldn’t even be bothering to look into this now if I had not heard some parallel buzz about these rumors from military sources I actually trust.

But before Scahill gets to this nugget, he engages in some traditional liberal nihilism.  Unable to attack the message, which he admits he has heard “parallel buzz” on, he attacks the messengers, saying: (more…)

Through key intelligence sources in Afghanistan and Pakistan, I have just learned that reclusive Taliban leader and top Osama bin Laden ally, Mullah Omar has been taken into custody.

According to the State Department’s Rewards for Justice Program there is a bounty of up to $10 million on Omar for sheltering Osama bin-Laden and his al-Qaeda network in the years prior to the September 11 attacks as well as the period during and immediately thereafter.

At the end of March, US Military Intelligence was informed by US operatives working in the Af/Pak theater on behalf of the D.O.D. that Omar had been detained by Pakistani authorities. One would assume that this would be passed up the chain and that the Secretary of Defense would have been alerted immediately. From what I am hearing, that may not have been the case.

When this explosive information was quietly confirmed to United States Intelligence ten days ago by Pakistani authorities, it appeared to take the Defense Department by surprise. No one, though, is going to be more surprised than Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. It seems even with confirmation from the Pakistanis themselves, she was never brought up to speed.

(more…)

On Wednesday, CNN’s Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr reported on multiple, highly sensitive documents that had been “provided” to CNN and which detail valuable, strategic intelligence gathered by the Department of Defense in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

It should come as no surprise that Starr made sure to highlight all of the juicy details.  She not only revealed U.S. knowledge of a covert meeting between Hamid Karzai’s brother and Mullah Baradar (a top Taliban leader who was later arrested in Pakistan), as well as a secret audio message played to Taliban commanders from reclusive Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, but she went on to inform the entire world that the United States has a safe house in Kabul (used by members of the Haqqani terror network) currently under surveillance.  Great work Barbara!

Would anyone care to wager that within hours of Starr’s story being published on the Internet that the Haqqani network began sanitizing and abandoning all of its safe houses in Kabul?

How about a wager on whether or not Taliban operatives are now actively triangulating the information from Starr’s reporting in order to find out how the United States came by it?  What about a wager on whether or not once the Taliban discover who’s responsible on their end, that person or persons will be murdered? (more…)

Kandahar Province, Afghanistan
25 March 2010

Dogs have been trained to carry bombs to attack enemies for decades.  The Soviets and others have used dogs as low-tech smart bombs.  Yet canine platoons likely would rebel if they caught scent they were being duped to die.

Today, more sophisticated people employ men (mostly) to deliver bombs in Afghanistan.  Gullible souls are selected, conditioned, trained and deployed.  Malleable minds are identified then loaded with psychic software that uses their minds to create a vision.  Evil persons of superior intellect identify the raw material—that raw material might be an engineer from a stable family—and trains them to fetch myths. (more…)