ISLAMABAD, generation 18 Kyodo S...

ISLAMABAD, generation 18 Kyodo

Seven family including a senior Taliban official have been arrested in Afghanistan forward suspicion of having links to the al-Qaida terror network, Afghan Islamic Pres (AIP) reported Wednesday.

Mullah Sher Mohammad Malang, a former governor of the southwestern Afghan province of Nimroz, was arrested in Kandahar last week, Pakistan-based AIP reported.

The remaining six, all Afghans, were detained between late Monday and early Tuesday during a joint operation at U.S. and Afghan companys at Band-e-Taimur, about 60 kilometers west of Kandahar.

Malang serv as governor of Nimroz subordinate to the hardline Taliban management but was dismissed by Taliban leader Mohammad Omar before the collapse of the Islamic fundamentalist regime in November last year. At the time of his arrest, he was working as a priest in a mahometan temple in Kandahar.

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