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Zaeef Handed Over To Eastern Alliance
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"Pakistan rejects Zaeef's request for political asylum and hands him to the NA" |
By IOL Correspondent Aamir Latif
ISLAMABAD, Jan. 5 (IslamOnline) - Former Taliban envoy to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, who was detained on last Thursday by Pakistani security officials, was deported back to Afghanistan on Saturday January 5 2002, from where, he would be handed over to U.S. forces, well-placed intelligence sources told IslamOnline.
“He was asked to leave the country, which he did,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan told IslamOnline.
Khan refused to tell whether Zaeef himself crossed over Afghanistan or he was handed over to Karzai’s administration.
Military sources said that Zaeef was handed over to the commanders of Eastern Alliance, which would later hand him over to the U.S. forces.
Zaeef will either be shifted to a U.S. base near Kandahar airport or a flag-ship in Gulf for interrogation, sources claimed.
The CIA and the FBI believes that Zaeef knew much on the whereabouts of Taliban's Supreme Leader Mullah Omar and Osama Bin Laden, sources said.
Pakistan's military government, in fact had no objection on handing over of Zaeef to the U.S., but it did not do that on Pakistani soil in order to avoid internal criticism, sources added.
Zaeef, who was picked up from his home in Islamabad on Thursday for questioning, was believed to have been held in the northwestern border city of Peshawar before being deported to Afghanistan.
The 34-year-old Zaeef became famous as the Taliban's principle voice to the outside world following the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
He was one of only three Taliban ambassadors until Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates broke off diplomatic relations after the September 11 attacks, leaving Zaeef as the sole spokesman.
Pakistan, too, withdrew its support for Taliban militia and backed the U.S.-led war on Afghanistan to flush out Osama bin Laden and his loyalists -- the Taliban's ''guests'' and who is accused of allegedly being the mastermind of September 11 deadly attacks.
Zaeef last month had applied for political asylum in Pakistan, shortly after Pakistan ended diplomatic ties with the Taliban regime.
“The decision about not granting a visa or extending his stay was taken by the government of Pakistan,” Aziz Khan said.
Asked whether Zaeef had been handed over to the U.S.-led forces fighting in Afghanistan, he said: “He crossed the border into Afghanistan as far as the government of Pakistan is concerned. we have no idea about his future.''
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