Taliban top leadership in Quetta, Pak must strike before it’s too late: US

October 3rd, 2009 ISLAMABAD - The United States has reiterated that top Afghan Taliban commanders, including Mullah Omar, are hiding in Quetta and creating trouble for the US led NATO forces in Afghanistan. Deputy chief of the US mission in Pakistan, Gerald M Feierstein, said Washington has credible information that Mullah Omar is in Quetta and 'freely moves across the border and some other major cities of Pakistan, including Karachi.' "We are confident that Mullah Omar is in Quetta.

October 2nd, 2009 ISLAMABAD - Pakistani Government officials have expressed 'surprise' over the comments made by US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W Patterson in an interview and said that there was a huge disconnect between Washington and its embassy in Islamabad. In the interview, Patterson had said that the Taliban militants were hiding in Balochistan and coordinating anti-US operations from Quetta.

October 1st, 2009 ISLAMABAD - The United States has reiterated that top Taliban leaders including Mullah Omar are hiding in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan and carrying out their nefarious activities from there. Interacting with media persons here, Deputy Chief of the Mission, US Embassy, Gerald Feierstein said Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was alive and has taken refuge in Pakistan.

September 29th, 2009 LAHORE - Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik has rejected media reports that top Taliban commander Mullah Omar was hiding in Quetta. A private television channel quoted Malik as saying that Omar was in Kandahar, Afghanistan and not in Quetta as was reported by The Sunday Times.

September 29th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The United States has expressed concerns over the ease with which the Taliban fighters from Afghanistan sneak into the other side of the border into Pakistan and have established a safe haven there. While the NATO forces have intensified their battle in South Afghanistan, the Taliban commanders, taking advantage of the porous border, have crossed over into Pakistan's lawless tribal areas and are carrying out their extremist activities from there.

September 29th, 2009 LONDON - Pakistan has rejected the notion that the Taliban's leadership council (shura) is operating from Quetta, Balochistan. Interior Miniter Rehman Malik rebuffed claims made by the US and Britain regarding the presence of top Taliban commanders in Quetta.

September 28th, 2009 ISLAMABAD - Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency has categorically rejected a report saying that it was providing a safe haven to Taliban leader Mullah Omar, describing it as a propaganda blitz against an institution which has played pivotal role in the eradication of terrorism. The report was ill motivated and sheer mudslinging, a senior ISI official told Online news agency.

September 27th, 2009 LONDON - The United States is annoyed and frustrated at the way the Taliban and other extremists are easily sneaking into Pakistan's territory bordering Afghanistan, and could launch an air strike against the Talibani leadership who has taken refuge in Quetta. According to The Times, the US's threat to target Taliban inside Pakistan's geographical boundary comes amid the increasing division in Washington over whether to send more troops to Afghanistan to deal with the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan or by reducing the number of security personnel and target the militants directly.

September 25th, 2009 NEW YORK - The issue of the Taliban's Quetta based leadership council, or shura, is now at the top of the Obama administration's agenda in its meetings with Pakistani officials at the sidelines of the 64th United Nations General Assembly, The New York Times reported. The newspaper reported that top US officials believe that senior Taliban commanders were using the terror sanctuaries based in Pakistan's lawless tribal region along the fghan border to carry out attacks against the US led allied forces in Afghanistan.

September 24th, 2009 NEW YORK - Expressing concerns over the growing level of sophistication and organization among the Taliban leadership, top US military and intelligence officials have said that they believe that the Taliban still gets support from the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Pakistani Army. A report based on the assessment of the US led 'war on terror' by General Stanley McChrystal, the top military commander in Afghanistan, also highlights the increasing clout of the Taliban even after eight years of continuous struggle.

September 24th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Taliban leaders, aided by Pakistani spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), are using their sanctuary in Pakistan to stoke a widening campaign of violence in northern and western Afghanistan, the New York Times reported. The Taliban's leadership council, led by Mullah Muhammad Omar and operating around the southern Pakistani city of Quetta, was directly responsible for a wave of violence in once relatively placid parts of northern and western Afghanistan, the influential US daily said citing unnamed senior American military and intelligence officials.

August 26th, 2009 DERA ISMAIL KHAN - The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan has acknowledged that its top leader Baitullah Mehsud was dead, ending weeks of claims and counter-claims over his fate following a US missile strike on his father-in-law's house earlier this month. It is the first time that the militant group has acknowledged his death.

August 24th, 2009 LAHORE - Rejecting foreign media reports that Taliban supreme commander Mullah Omar and the central council of the terrorist organisation were present in Balochistan, Frontier Corps Balochistan Inspector General (IG) Major General Saleem Nawaz has said that they are not functioning from Quetta. Major General Nawaz rejected the claims that the Taliban were operating from Quetta, calling the reports as "baseless".

June 2nd, 2009 ISLAMABAD - The Taliban leadership has shifted to mountains to regroup and strike back at a suitable time, The Nation reports. After losing hundreds of their low cadre militants in fierce clashes with the Pakistani Army, the central leadership of Swat-Taliban has simply left the valley and hopes to emerge stronger at the right time.

April 30th, 2009 PESHAWAR - A large number of Taliban leaders have shifted from Quetta to Karachi, Peshawar and other cities and are maintaining a low profile fearing fresh US drone strikes. Taliban leaders after discussing in detail the situation, caused by recent threats of drone attacks by the United States, United Kingdom and other allies, have decided to vacate Quetta with immediate effect, sources have said.