The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) on Saturday detained Ikramullah Turabi, commander of the terrorist outfit Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), in Nangarhar province of Afghanistan.
According to sources, Turabi was held by ISAF authorities at District Lal Pura in Nangarhar. He was on a mission to finalise schedule and arrangements for upcoming meetings with Afghan intelligence National Directorate of Security (NDS) officials.
The NDS is the domestic intelligence agency of the government of Afghanistan which directly reports to the president and the National Assembly. The NDS has about thirty departments and different branches all across Afghanistan. It employs an estimated 15,000 to 30,000 people, mostly trained by the United States Department of Homeland Security and other NATO states.
The NDS is also responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information and intelligence in support of law enforcement, national security, defence and foreign policy objectives. Means of information gathering are both overt and covert and may include espionage, communication interception, cryptanalysis, cooperation with other institutions, and evaluation of public sources. The assembly and propagation of this information is known as intelligence analysis or intelligence assessment.
The detention of Turabi has also highlighted the established links between NDS and TTP, sources said, adding that apprehension of the terrorist commander had also endorsed Pakistan’s stance about these links which had been denied by both the TTP and NDS.
Moreover, Pakistani government and political parties had been demanding of the Afghan government to hand Molvi Faqeer and other wanted TTP terrorists hiding at safe havens inside Afghan soil. The new chief of TTP Mullah Fazlullah is also reportedly residing in Afghan province Nuristan along with thousands of terrorists who fled from Swat after the Pakistan Army offensive.
Another senior TTP commander Latif Mehsud was held by ISAF in Afghanistan a few days before the killing of TTP chief Hakimullah Mehsud in a drone attack.
