Pakistan's reported capture of the Taliban's top commander, with CIA help, would represent a dramatic shift after years protecting leaders of a militia that served as its proxy in Afghanistan, analysts said Tuesday.
The New York Times reported late Monday that Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar was captured in Karachi last week in a secret operation carried out by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) and the Central Intelligence Agency.
"It's a clear signal to the Afghan Taliban commanders in Pakistan: Things have changed. You've got to make a choice, either you are going to continue fighting and it's going to be without our help, or you make a deal," said Arturo Munoz, a former CIA officer.
Without confirming Baradar's arrest, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs hailed the increased cooperation with ISI, a military intelligence arm that helped create the Taliban in the 1990s and has maintained contacts with it ever since.
"We've seen an increase in Pakistani pushback on extremists in their own country, which I think is beneficial, not simply for us," Gibbs said.
Not everyone is convinced that the ISI has now made a decisive turn against its former allies, and it remains to be seen how long the new spirit of cooperation will last.
Paul Pillar, a former top CIA analyst, told AFP that Baradar's arrest, while a departure, fitted a Pakistani intelligence pattern of making only "incremental" concessions to US pressure.
"Does it mean the ISI is fully on board? I doubt it," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer who last year led a White House review of Afghan strategy. But he said, "it's... a significant step in the right direction."
And no one doubts the arrest was a huge coup for Washington, which has turned up the pressure on Pakistan over the past year as it has surged forces into Afghanistan to stem a deteriorating security environment.
Retired general Jim Jones, the national security adviser and the latest in a long line of top officials to travel to Islamabad, was in Pakistan last week around the time of Baradar's arrest.
Baradar, second only in the Taliban hierarchy to Mullah Mohammed Omar, was the top commander of the movement, laying down military strategy, meeting with commanders and managing its finances.
A former top security official in the Taliban regime, he ascended to the number two spot after the 2001 US-led invasion that forced out Mullah Omar.
Baradar "knew how to govern and how to lead in the traditional Pashtun way, relying on shuras, listening to his subcommanders," said Munoz.
"He was a very respected, very beloved leader, and so to lose him I think will be extremely demoralizing for the Taliban movement. Having said that, the Taliban are tough guys, they've been at war for quite a while."
Riedel said Baradar is a potential "gold mine of intelligence information, both from what he might be able to say but also if he had a laptop with him, or a Blackberry or whatever."
"This guy will know where most of the safe houses and rat holes are, and it will therefore be harder for them," he said.
He said the capture was also a victory for the broader US campaign in Afghanistan, which has struggled against Pakistan's reluctance to move against the Taliban's safe havens.
He said Pakistan's military leaders have concluded after fighting local Taliban militants inside Pakistan that they were inextricably linked with the Afghan Taliban, "and you really couldn't move against one and not the other."
There also have been other signs the Pakistani military is rethinking its Taliban strategy, most notably a recent offer to mediate with Taliban factions, something it had declined to do in the past.
"It's possible that one of the reasons the Pakistanis were willing to cooperate here is they want a political process to begin where their partners would become part of the political process," said Riedel.
"And I suspect Mullah Omar and Mullah Baradar were opposed to that. They are not reconcilable. They are interested in victory. So this may have the consequence of weakening the hardliners within the Taliban," he said.
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