"Protected persons are entitled, in all circumstances, to respect for their persons, their honour, their family rights, their religious convictions and practices, and their manners and customs. They shall at all times be humanely treated, and shall be protected especially against all acts of violence or threats thereof and against insults and public curiosity. ... all protected persons shall be treated with the same consideration by the Party to the conflict in whose power they are, without any adverse distinction based, in particular, on race, religion or political opinion. However, the Parties to the conflict may take such measures of control and security in regard to protected persons as may be necessary as a result of the war."

- Article 27, Fourth Geneva Convention

Editor's Comment: Following a careful reading of Shahid R. Siddiqi's report and analysis, it has been interesting to note several things. The first is that a scouring of the corporate media reports on the arrest of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar tends to obscure the fact that it was Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) that arrested him and noone else. Read Shahid's fascinating analysis of the Washington Time's article and how Pakistan:

• has retained control of their prisoner
  
  
• allows the United States freedom to interrogate their prisoner but will not permit treatment outside the bounds of the 4 treaties known as the Geneva Convention.
  
  
• appears to be giving their prisoner the rights and protection afforded by the Fourth Geneva Convention, which defines the basic rights of those captured during a military conflict and guarantees that prisoners of war, enemy combatants and even those considered to be "unlawful combatants", a fair trial and humanitarian treatment.

- Les Blough, Editor

The Washington Times story about this Afghan commander is misleading

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar

There is never a dearth of anonymous officials in Washington who curry favor with corporate media by giving out half baked information, at times based on presumptions. In one such case The Washington Times recently carried a story titled Pakistan Seen Restricting Data from Mullah that quoted an unnamed official in Washington who voiced dissatisfaction with the way interrogation of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the second-in-command of the Afghan Taliban who was captured in Karachi last February by Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) is proceeding.

Dissatisfaction shown by this unnamed official in respect of something that Pakistan does in good faith for the Americans is symbolic of how Washington looks at things. One has witnessed this attitude for several decades now. More recently, only a couple of years after the Bush administration attacked Afghanistan, it began to show dissatisfaction with what Pakistan was doing to support Bush’s war on terror. All one heard from the Americans was the mantra of “do more”. Today, nine years later, after thousands of Pakistani soldiers have died in combat against the Taliban (these casualties are much more than the combined US and Allied casualties in Afghanistan), after thousands of civilian lives were lost as a result of terror attacks inside Pakistan that are a direct consequence of America’s ‘war on terror’ and when Pakistan stands destabilized with its economy taking a nose dive, Obama administration officials, such as Hillary Clinton, only hurl threats.

Like an imperialist power, the US has come to expect that Pakistan, its government, army and intelligence agencies will serve only American interests, in total and complete disregard of Pakistan’s national interests. Some of US officials wouldn’t care less if Pakistan were to commit hara-kiri in the process.

The Washington Times, known for giving its coverage a biased slant and anti-Pakistan stance, lost no time in slamming Pakistan for the inability of American interrogators to get ‘valuable information’ from Mullah Baradar. Quoting unnamed US intelligence officials, the paper rushed to conclude that “Pakistan is holding back valuable intelligence data obtained from captured Taliban leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.”

US intelligence officials have resented that ISI keeps the custody of Mullah Baradar due to Lahore High Court order disallowing his extradition passed on a petition filed against the government intention to extradite him. They have been unable to lay their hands on him and extract information of their liking through the Guantanamo Bay style interrogation, possibly at the infamous Bagram prison in Afghanistan.

But they cannot complain much. They have regular access to Mullah Baradar and they pose direct questions to him. They have had this access since two weeks after his capture – a period needed for establishing his identity and complying with post-arrest legal process. The Washington Times story conceded this but went on to complain that Mullah Baradar has yielded little actionable intelligence.

Given his high position as key operational commander the US officials in Washington were optimistic of readily obtaining valuable intelligence on Taliban military operations, funding and strategy as a result of their interrogations. His US interrogators in Islamabad were apparently hopeful that he would begin to spill the beans immediately after they start questioning him. Apparently this has not happened. He has proven to be a tough nut to crack. And some disgruntled official in Washington chose to conveniently lay the blame at the ISI’s door step for Mullah Baradar’s refusal to oblige.

Failing to recognize the ongoing cooperation between ISI and US intelligence authorities and the fact that ISI has captured and handed over more key Taliban leaders and operatives to the US than any other agency, The Washington Times was quick to recall the past Taliban connection with ISI, implying that Baradar’s lack of cooperation with US interrogators was the result of ISI going soft on him. The paper chose to ignore the fact that the Americans were also the ardent supporters and financiers of the Taliban along with Pakistan until the Bush administration decided to attack Afghanistan.

The Washington Times tried to draw a pointless parallel by citing the case of Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistani nuclear scientist, which is not even remotely related to Mullah Baradar’s case. The paper blamed Pakistan for not allowing the U.S. intelligence officials to directly question Dr. Khan, who is hailed as Pakistan’s national hero, whom the West accuses of proliferation and has wanted to lay hands on him which Pakistan has refused, allowing his indirect questioning instead.

The Washington Times story is contradicted by Reuters that quotes a senior counterterrorism official in Washington who has dispelled any notion that Mullah Baradar has not provided useful information.

"It's simply incorrect to say that Baradar isn't providing anything useful. If people are claiming that his questioning isn't yielding results because he isn't disclosing where the Taliban's top leadership is today, it's worth recalling that he's been in custody for months."

According to Reuters American officials in Washington also substantiated this, saying that Mullah Baradar has started to produce useful intelligence on the group and its operations against US forces across the Pakistani border. These sources confirmed that the American investigators have been participating regularly and directly in interrogation sessions for at least the past month. Some of the information obtained from Baradar has been verified and has been useful to US commanders’ intelligence officers and analysts in both Afghanistan and Washington, three US officials involved in the matter said. They said Pakistan was taking the lead.

“These things take time,” one US military official said of interrogating Baradar. “It takes time to get the information and it takes time to check out that information.”

Nadeem Kiani, a spokesman for Pakistan's embassy in Washington said about the interrogation,

"It is a continuing process and we are interrogating him. We are following the leads. Our impression is that the United States side is also satisfied with the information they are getting from him."

From intelligence gathering against Al Qaeda to the capture of Mullah Baradar and other Taliban leaders earlier on there clearly exists a great deal of cooperation between Pakistan’s ISI and the American intelligence apparatus. Criticism based on unsubstantiated information obtained from unauthentic sources can only create misgivings and prove counterproductive. The Washington Times should have at least reconfirmed facts before jumping to conclusion.