Taliban claim holding five US, Nato officers, over 100 soldiers
07 April, 2012
KARACHI: Mulla Nabi Usmani, an important commander of the Afghan Taliban, has claimed that they are holding as prisoners five Nato and US officers and over 100 Afghan and Nato soldiers and civilians but nobody knows their exact number because they are being kept at different and far-flung places. In a special interview with Jang and our sources at an undisclosed location near Spin Boldak on April 5, Mulla Nabi Usmani, who is a highly trusted aide and successor to Taliban chief Mulla Muhammad Omar and younger brother of martyred Mulla Akhter Usmani, said the number of active Taliban fighters is over 70,000 and they are fighting the most modern army of the world with arms left behind by Russians. Mulla Nabi Usmani, who is fighting Nato forces in Kandahar and its vicinity along with over 5,000 armed comrades, showed signs of torture on him during his three-year-long detention in Bagram, Kabul, Kandahar, Pule Charkhi jails and safe houses of the Afghan intelligence, including one of his eyes that was plucked during detention. He also showed the obsolete Russian arms being used by the Taliban against the Nato forces in Afghanistan. He said Taliban had snatched these arms from Russians over one-and-a-half decades ago. End.
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