Taliban leader Mullah Muhammed Omar is not in Balochistan and the United States should not carry out missile attacks in the region, a senior official said. Western and Afghan officials have long suspected that Omar and other members of the Taliban government ousted by the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 have found refuge in or near the city of Quetta, Balochistans capital.
Islamabad has challenged the United States to provide it with any evidence of Omars whereabouts, insisting Pakistani forces will immediately move against the fugitive Taliban chief.
The New York Times reported this week that US officials are weighing extending missile strikes into Balochistan in pursuit of Taliban and al Qaida leaders who have shifted from militant strongholds farther north. The head of the Balochistan provincial government insisted Friday that Mullah Omar was not there.
``A person who is making war against the Nato forces, he must be present in Afghanistan, in (the Afghan province of) Kandahar or somewhere, Nawab Mohammed Aslam Raisani said, adding ``there is no justification for drone attacks in Quetta or other parts of Balochistan.
He said there was a distinction between Taliban militants fighting in Afghanistan and Taliban students studying peacefully in religious schools in Pakistan. US officials say a stepped-up program of missile strikes into Pakistans unpoliced tribal belt along the Afghan frontier has killed a string of top al Qaida figures since last year. Western officials also are concerned about Balochistan because Taliban fighters slip across its long, thinly policed border into Kandahar and Helmand provinces, where Nato troops face fierce resistance.