PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Jan 3 (Reuters) - Pakistani security agencies on Saturday arrested a senior Afghan Taliban official who had been released from prison in Afghanistan in 2007 in exchange for a kidnapped Italian journalist, intelligence officials said. Ustad Yasar, who headed a Taliban information wing, was arrested in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, they said. "Our security forces raided a house on a tip-off and arrested Ustad Yasar," said an intelligence official who declined to be identified. The official said Yasar had been detained because he was a militant commander and involved in Taliban activities. Yasar was among several Taliban leaders released by the Afghan government in March 2007 in exchange for kidnapped Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo, a Taliban spokesman said at the time. Another Pakistani security official said Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar had sent Yasar to mediate in a dispute between Taliban factions in northwest Pakistan. Yasar was first arrested in Pakistan in 2005 and handed over to the Afghan government. Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan, both important U.S. allies, have come under strain in recent years over Afghan complaints that Pakistan is not doing enough to stop Taliban insurgents operating from Pakistani soil. Pakistan officially stopped supporting the hardline Islamists after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. Pakistani security forces are battling Pakistani Taliban on its side of the border while Western and Afghan government forces fight the Taliban on the Afghan side. (Reporting by Alamgir Bitani; Writing by Augustine Anthony; Editing by Robert Birsel/Tony Austin)
Supporters of Pakistani Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami chant slogans as they protest against the launch of an offensive by security forces against militants in Khyber tribal agency, in Peshawar January 3, 2009. ...
