Taliban mount hunt for 'foreign spies'

Frontier Post

By AIMAL KHAN
PESHAWAR - The puritanical Taliban government has mounted a massive man-hunt for an Arab gang spying for "an external power" in the militia-held areas inside Afghanistan.
"The spy gang is currently in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan to monitor the activities of Osama bin Laden and his followers and gather information of the investment they have made in the war-battered country," well-placed sources told The Frontier Post Tuesday.
"Besides the Arab spies, other foreign agents are also active in Afghanistan to dig out details of Osama's and his acolytes' doings," the official said, adding that these elements were required by their governments and some Western countries for their alleged involvement in terrorist acts.
Under different guises, the foreign agents sneaked into Afghanistan but the Taliban leadership had lately initiated a string of measures to check their operations, the source said, without elaborating.
According to Taliban's intelligence sources, some Arabs nationals working for an external power are out to create misunderstandings between the militia and the Arab radicals. "Their operations also tend to divide the Afghanistan-based Arabs."
In a bid to counter the spies and the Western propaganda against Kabul, the Taliban had started preparing dossiers on all the Arabs living in Afghanistan, he continued.
The alleged terrorist mastermind, Osama bin Laden, is believed to be running his own state-of-the-art intelligence network to "keep himself abreast of enemy plans and protect himself against covert operations." 
In the not-so-distant past, Taliban police arrested three Arabs - posing as Osama loyalists - on suspicion of spying for a "foreign country," which the source did not name.