Kabul - The Pakistani Ambassador to Afghanistan, Tariq Azizuddin, has been reported missing between Kabul and the two countries' border, senior Afghan officials confirmed Monday - amid speculation that he had been kidnapped. The report followed military officials' stating that a Pakistani security forces had captured a senior Taliban commander, Mullah Mansour Dadullah, following a firefight along the border.
The ambassador had least been travelling on the highway between Peshawar over the Khyber Pass to Kabul, the Afghan officials told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
All trace had been lost since a last sighting Monday evening in the Jamrud region on the pakistani side of the border.
The BBC later quoted unidentified sources as saying the ambassador had been kidnapped in a semi-autonomous tribal area where Muslim extremists are known to be active.
Military officials earlier had said Dadullah, younger brother of Mullah Dadullah, a widely-feared Taliban commander in eastern Afghanistan, was wounded in the firefight, which erupted after he and five Taliban members crossed into Pakistan early Monday at Qilla Saifullah town in the southern province of Balochistan.
"Mansour Dadullah and his five accomplices were captured after a gunfight in which which they were also wounded," an official at the Pakistan military's Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) directorate said.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, also denied some reports that Mansour Dadullah was killed in the firefight.
He also said the Pakistani security forces did not suffer any causalities.
In May 2007, Mullah Dadullah, a one-legged commander, was killed in a joint operation by NATO and Afghan forces in Helmand province.
Mansour Dadullah, who was believed to be 30 years old at the time, was chosen by supreme Taliban leader Mullah Omar to succeed his older brother.
Omar then dismissed him in late December for insubordination, but Mansour Dadullah reportedly denied being sacked during media interviews last month, saying he was "indispensable" to the Taliban movement.
While his capture is seen as a success for embattled Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, it also supports claims by US military and intelligence officials that the Taliban have safe haven along the Pakistani border from which they cross to and from Afghanistan with impunity and launch attacks against Afghan and NATO forces there.
In addition, Pakistani militant commanders, who also profess to being Taliban, continue to operate in the country's tribal areas and provide refuge for al-Qaeda leaders despite the presence of around 100,000 Pakistani Army and paramilitary troops.
Musharraf is under pressure from the US Bush administration, his chief foreign backer, to do more to eradicate the safe havens and capture or kill the Islamic militants as part of the broader war on terrorism.
Pakistani Taliban militants and their al-Qaeda allies are blamed for launching dozens of suicide bombings across the country in the past 13 months that have killed more than 1,000 people.
