Counterterrorism Blog notes that Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has been captured during a joint U.S. and Afghan Army raid in "eastern Afghanistan." Without putting up a fight, I might add - yet another Brave Warrior of Islam™.
Hekmatyar has been a problem for a long time as the commander of Hezb-i-Islami and ally of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. In fact, I've disliked him for longer than that, and with reason. I love this bit in Hekmatyar's Warlords of Afghanistan profile:
"In a Hollywood movie Hekmatyar would be the evil foil to the heroic Masud. He would be an angry Islamic fundamentalist dressed in black, throwing acid in the faces of unveiled women and assassinating local tribal leaders that might rival his power. He would be the pawn of foreign secret service paymasters like the ISI, CIA, and Prince Turki of Saudi Arabia. He would unfeelingly sacrifice peasants for his cause, rocket the helpless civilians mixed in with his enemies, and his ruthless ambition would prevent the creation of a new peace. Unfortunately, in real life Hekmatyar was all these things."
They forgot "major heroin trafficker," though I've addressed the strategic irrelevance of that fact in "Afghanistan: Opium, War, and Strategy." The alliance with al-Qaeda et. al. IS relevant, however, and being evil is no intrinsic barrier to talent. As leaders go, unfortunately, Hekmatyar has proven himself to be pretty talented.
When you think of your workplace, and tally up the number of genuinely talented people in it, it becomes clear pretty quickly that losing talented people matters. And that's why his capture makes me somewhat happy. It isn't as good as killing him would have been, but it's still good news.
"It isn't as good as killing him would have been, but it's still good news."
Well, depending on the information he gives us, it might be better we got him alive.
And then we can kill him.
What is the latest - are we allowed to do 'coerced interrogation' on him or not?
I the 9/11 movie, I like how the Pakistani Police Chief told the US agents that "If you give me 1 hour with him (Ramzi Yousuf), I'll get all the information you need."
It's time we started acting realistic here.
I'm sure we read him his Miranda rights, showed him how to use his cable television, and now we're torturing him with a Leonard Cohen record.
Interestingly, the Coalition hasn't announced Hekmatyar's capture, and my friends throughout the Coalition can neither confirm nor deny the story. But the German press were the first media to report it and since Hekmatyar operated heavily in the north-eastern "German sector," it seems very likely that it was German forces-- sick of Hekmatyar's attacks against them-- that may have led the operation that captured him. If that's the case, and since the Germans report to the British NATO Commander-- not the Coalition, it would stand to reason that the Coalition doesn't yet have any reliable information. But it would also be interesting to see what the Germans do to him, if they have him.