Islamabad - A Taliban spokesman was arrested in the Swat Valley, where troops have spent five months fighting Islamist insurgents, Pakistan's military said Friday. Army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said Muslim Khan was captured with four colleagues, including key militant commander Mehmood Khan, during a security operation in the suburb of Mingora, the main town in Swat district.
Muslim Khan had a bounty of 10 million rupees (122,000 US dollars) on his head for involvement in terrorist activities. The same reward was offered by the government for information about Mehmood Khan.
"The arrested terrorist leaders are under the interrogation of law enforcement agencies," Abbas said in a press statement.
"The security forces are conducting operations on the information obtained from the arrested terrorist leaders," he added. "Any further details to the media on the arrested leaders at this stage may jeopardize the operations of security forces, which are meeting remarkable success."
The Taliban claimed that all five militants, who were members of the Taliban shura, or advisory council, were lured to peace talks in Islamabad and were then arrested by security officials.
The English-language newspaper The News cited a Taliban deputy spokesman, identified only as Salman, in a story published Friday as saying the peace talks were mediated through a person named Kamal Khan, who is a resident of Swat but settled in the United States, as well as a major in Military Intelligence identified only as Abdullah.
The newspaper reported that after guarantees from the military authorities, the five-member Taliban delegation went to Islamabad to hold talks with the Pakistan Army a week ago.
According to Salman, the Taliban were in regular contact with the five militant leaders for the first five days but started to suspect three days ago that the negotiators had been arrested.
Abbas denied the Taliban claim that Muslim Khan and other rebel leaders were arrested during peace talks.
"We have already declared that no talks will be held with any terrorist," Abbas said. "If they want to surrender, they should lay down their arms and hand themselves to civil administration or law enforcement agencies."
The capture of Muslim Khan, who is a close aide of the Taliban chief in Swat, Maulana Fazlullah, is considered a major success in the government's offensive against militants in Swat. However, Fazlullah remains at large.
The government said its troops have killed nearly 2,000 rebels and regained control over much of the Swat Valley, which is about 140 kilometres north-west of Islamabad.
The army said on Friday in a statement that the security forces killed two more militants in ongoing operations in the region. They also arrested at least 34 militants from Swat and neighbouring Dir district.
"Security forces carried out a search operation at Kad near Sardari and killed two terrorists," an army statement said.
Meanwhile, Interior Minister Rehman Malik warned militants to lay down their arms or face the consequences. In comments carried on the local Geo television channel, Malik said Pakistan's army had broken the back of the militant movement in just three months in an unprecedented operation.
