Najib Manalai, an adviser to Afghanistan’s minister of culture and youth affairs, has described the Taliban [in an interview] as a composite of different elements, "hijacked by Pakistani intelligence services and by international terrorist groups." While there exists de facto leadership, its interest is with international terrorism, rather than a national agenda. [EurasiaNet [2], June 6]
[He also said that under the Taliban regime, "Al-Qaeda took actual power in Afghanistan —and Mullah Omar was an image of power but not actual power."]
Meanwhile, Pakistani police have arrested 312 political party workers during the last few days in the Punjab province, in advance of a planned protest against new government restrictions on the news media. [NYT [3], June 6]
From Madrid11.net Security Briefs [4], June 7
See our last posts on Pakistan [5] and Afghanistan and al-Qaeda [6].
