Islamabad, January 25: A former Pakistani spy who helped the Taleban rise to power in Afghanistan has died in militant captivity 10 months after he was seized in northwest Pakistan, a top official said.
Sultan Amir Tarar died of a heart attack while in custody, but his body remains with the insurgents, said Tariq Hayat, the top government representative in the northwest tribal regions.
Tarar was kidnapped along with a British journalist who was released in September and another former spy, Khalid Khawaja, who was executed by his captors in April.
Tarar’s kidnapping appeared to indicate the extent to which some insurgents in the lawless northwest had abandoned any loyalties to Pakistani intelligence agencies.
Tarar, known as Col. Imam, played a major role in funneling Pakistani support and training to Afghans fighting Soviet rule in the 1980s, a push also supported by the CIA.
After the Soviets withdrew, he continued to be Pakistan’s point man with the Taleban, which were seen by Islamabad as allies, providing them with arms, funding and training. He and Khawaja remained publicly sympathetic to the Afghan Taleban and its leader, Mullah Omar, since their downfall in 2001 after the U.S-led invasion.
Some media reports have said Tarar maintained operational ties with insurgents in recent years, which he denied. In interviews before his kidnapping, he had spoken of the need to negotiate with the Afghan Taleban to end the almost 10-year war.
It is unclear why the two men traveled to the northwest, but they presumably felt their background and Islamist views offered some protection while traveling there. The region is now home to groups battling the Pakistan state and its intelligence agencies, Al-Qaeda and also Afghan Taleban factions fighting in Afghanistan.
A previously unknown militant group calling itself the “Asian Tigers” initially said it had seized the men.
Analysts speculated the captors were a new breed of militants who had turned against their former protectors.
-Agencies