Taleban has appointed a new spokesman, a report said Friday, after the movement's previous mouthpiece was arrested in Pakistan. The Afghan Islamic Press news agency said it had been called by a man who identified himself as Abdul Hayee Mutmaen, the group's new main spokesman.
He said he had been appointed by Mullah Mohammad Omar, the fugitive leader of the Taleban movement that took control of most of war-ravaged Afghanistan in 1996 and was removed from power in a US-led campaign in late 2001.
Mutmaen said he had been the chief of the information department in the southern city of Kandahar during the Taleban government, the news agency said.
Pakistan security forces arrested the previous spokesman, Abdul Latif Hakimi, on October 4 in the Pakistani city of Peshawar. Hakimi had been the media's main link with the secretive Taleban and started calling news groups in early 2004 to claim attacks on behalf of the insurgents.
Sometimes his claims were exaggerated or untrue, but he was usually the only source of information about incidents other than the US military and Afghan officials.