"Pakistan: Detained Taliban Chief Talking"

[Clio the Leo]

Pakistan: Detained Taliban Chief Talking
Army Confirms Arrest of Mullah Baradar, says He's Providing Pakistan, U.S. Agents with "Useful Information"

(CBS/AP) Pakistan on Wednesday confirmed for the first time that it has the Afghan Taliban's No. 2 leader in custody, and officials said he was providing useful intelligence that was being shared with the United States.

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar was arrested around 10 days ago in a joint operation by CIA and Pakistani security forces in the southern port city of Karachi, U.S. and Pakistani officials said on condition of anonymity Tuesday. The army on Wednesday gave the first public confirmation of the arrest.

<snip>

One (Pakistani Official) said Baradar had provided "useful information" to them and that Pakistan had shared it with their U.S. counterparts. A third official said Wednesday that Baradar was being held at an office of Pakistan's most powerful spy agency, the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, in Karachi.

CBS News chief national security correspondent David Martin reports that, between whatever laptops and cell phones he had at the time of his arrest, and what he knows, Baradar is a potential goldmine of intelligence.

"The unique thing about this individual was that he had been working for the Taliban for well over a decade," former CIA officer Bruce Riedel tells CBS News. "He knew the inside and outside of how the Taliban operates."

Officials call Baradar the linchpin of Taliban strategy in Afghanistan, and as Martin reports, his capture comes just as the U.S. and its allies have launched a major new offensive in Helmand province.

(more)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/17/world/main6215543.shtml?tag=stack

I've always thought one of the most underreported stories from the Obama campaign (or from his life in general) was the time the President spent in Pakistan while he was in college. Now, this is not to say that he's micromanaging the situation and that he deserves all or even the bulk of the credit but you can't pass it off as coincidence either.

For all of the lack of military training the GOP harped on during the election, there was a whole other perspective on the matter that we ignored.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/10/us/politics/10obama.html">"I knew what Sunni and Shia was before I joined the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, "

[Nuclear Unicorn]

1. How much of that has been gained by

running water down his nose?