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U.S. Captures Taliban Official
Monday, December 24, 2001
(7:25 AM ET)
The Associated Press

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- AP
American soldiers in Afghanistan recently captured a high-level leader of the defeated Taliban movement, a news agency reported Monday.

Abdul Haq Wasiq, deputy chief of the Taliban's intelligence department, was detained in an operation in Gazni province, southwest of the Afghan capital of Kabul, according to the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press.

There was no independent confirmation of the report, which cited anonymous sources. A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition against terrorism, Kenton Keith, said in Islamabad on Monday that he had no information on the capture.

The agency said U.S. military helicopters swooped into the area around Maqaur town where Wasiq was hiding. Maqaur is about 150 miles southwest of Kabul, about halfway along the road between the capital and the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.
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2001 © The Associated Press.

Dan