PRETEND TO ROUND UP THE USUAL SUSPECTS

Remember the reports of the arrest of the Taliban's #3 guy, Obaidullah Akhund, which circulated with great fanfare at the time of Dick Cheney's visit to Pakistan? Remember that I told you Akhund had been in the custody of the Northern Alliance (our pals) just as the Taliban were ceding power in Afghanistan at the end of the war -- but he was let go? And I said, "So what do you think? Do you think he's going to receive the same treatment again, this time from our pals the Pakistanis, who've been such gracious hosts to the Taliban for so long?"

Well, I guess that never happened -- apparently the Pakistanis didn't let him go because they were lying about the arrest in the first place:

A Swiss newspaper claimed Sunday that the Taliban's former defense minister was free two days after his reported capture by Pakistani security forces.

The Swiss weekly SonntagsBlick said one of its reporters spoke to Mullah Obaidullah Akhund on Feb. 28 unhindered in an Islamic school in the southwestern city of Quetta....

Several Pakistani intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said earlier this month that he was among five Taliban suspects arrested on Feb. 26 in a raid on a Quetta home. However, Pakistani government officials at that time did not confirm any arrest publicly, and one senior Interior Ministry official who handles counterterrorism issues denied a top Taliban figure was captured....

"The news is not true," SonntagsBlick wrote. "The world press reported: top-Taliban imprisoned. At the same time he was sitting with a SonntagsBlick reporter having coffee." ...

Cheney doesn't care. He got his headline, so why should he care about what Akhund does in the future?

(Via and Cernig's NewsHog and the Sideshow.)