Pakistani police say two high ranking officials in Afghanistan's ousted Taleban regime have been arrested near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.
A police source said the Taleban's former chief justice, Noor Mohammad Saqib, and the movement's deputy foreign minister, Addul Rehman Zahid, were arrested during a pre-dawn search of two villages near Quetta.
The police source told VOA the arrests occurred during search operations designed to find and identify Taleban and al-Qaida terrorist fugitives who fled Afghanistan after the U-S-led war on terrorism was launched four months ago.
Mohammad Saqib is the highest ranking member of the Taleban regime in police custody in either Pakistan or Afghanistan. He is believed to have fled Afghanistan days after the U-S-led coalition launched strikes on the regime in early October.
Former Taleban ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, was taken into custody earlier this month. But most of the movement's top officials, including leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, remain at large.
In early September -- one day before terrorist attacks on the United States -- Mohammad Saqib presided over the trial of eight Western aid workers accused by the fundamentalist Taleban of preaching Christianity in Afghanistan.
The trial was suspended when U-S-led coalition forces launched attacks on Afghanistan a month later. The aid workers were rescued November 15th, as Taleban control of Afghanistan was collapsing under the weight of U-S airstrikes and Northern Alliance ground assaults.