Captain's Quarters -

A little pressure from the United States seems to have refocused Pakistan on their end of the war. Within days of the highest-level visit by the US in a long time, Pervez Musharraf's security forces captured a major Taliban figure -- in a city where Pakistan had insisted that al-Qaeda and the Taliban had no organization:

The former Taliban defense minister was arrested in Pakistan on Monday, the day of Vice President Dick Cheney’s visit, two government officials said Thursday. He is the most important Taliban member to be captured since the American-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

The man, Mullah Obaidullah, was a senior leader of the Afghan insurgency, which has battled American and NATO forces with increasing intensity over the last year.

He is one of the inner core around Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban leader. The leadership is believed to operate from the relative safety of Quetta, Pakistan, where Mullah Obaidullah was arrested.

It was not clear whether he was picked up before, during or after Mr. Cheney’s visit. But the timing may be significant because Mr. Cheney’s mission was intended to press Pakistan to do more to crack down on members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda who use Pakistan as a sanctuary.

Quetta sits near the Afghan border in Balochistan province. Pakistan had insisted that no significant Taliban operations existed in the border city prior to this arrest, but the sudden capture of a member of Mullah Omar's inner circle makes that harder to swallow.

Obaidullah had used a recent Reuters interview to brag about the capabilities of the Taliban army. He claimed that his forces could stand up to any foreign army, but in the same interview indicated that his new strategy would be to avoid direct confrontation with NATO and opt for suicide bombings on civilians instead. He was close enough to Omar to have that kind of insight. A Taliban spokesman captured in 2005 confirmed that Obaidullah was one of only a handful to have personal access to Mullah Omar, and is one of the four men thought to form the Quetta Council at the highest levels of the Taliban.

This makes the expected spring offensive a tough call for the Taliban. Obaidullah has to have had a large role in planning the military operations, such as they are, and his capture means that a significant security breach has to be assumed. They have probably arrayed their forces and logistics to conduct the opening operations. They either have to hope that Obaidullah can keep his mouth shut, or they will have to pull back their offensive operations and return to the drawing board.

Having Obaidullah in custody has significantly improved the situation in Afghanistan. If we can keep the pressure on the Pakistanis to continue rolling up the Taliban, the spring offensive may turn into a retreat before the first jihadi has a chance to blow himself up.