"...A manoeuvre by the ISI to discard the well-identified leaders of the Afghan Taliban & usher in a new leadership ..."

... so says B Raman, a Indian Intelligence analyst, here

The well-publicised arrests by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the supposed No.2 of the Afghan Taliban, and two other senior Taliban leaders Mullah Abdul Salam and Mullah Mohammad Mir have not had any impact on the morale of the Afghan Taliban fighters confronting the 15.000---strong US led NATO cum Afghan National Army troops, which launched an offensive on February 13,2010, to wrest control over the Marjah...

2. While it has been confirmed that Mulla Baradar was captured in Karachi on the basis of intelligence collected by the US agencies, it is not yet clear where the other Afghan Taliban leaders were captured....

3. There have been some other arrests of middle-level office-bearers of the Afghan Taliban in Karachi. These arrests have been projected by many American analysts, including Bruce Riedel, formerly of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as a possible game-changer and indicator of a welcome Pakistani decision to co-operate sincerely with the US against the Afghan Taliban.

4. These projections have not been borne out by reports from well-informed police sources in Karachi, which describe these arrests as a manoeuvre by the ISI to discard the well-identified leaders of the Afghan Taliban and usher in a new leadership consisting of well-motivated and well-trained recruits of recent vintage, who have not yet come to the notice of the US agencies.

5. They say that the leaders arrested since January-end in Karachi and other parts of Pakistan no longer constituted the command and control of the Afghan Taliban and that is why their arrests have not yet had any impact on the operations of the Afghan Taliban on the ground----either in the Helmand province or elsewhere. They say that the Taliban forces presently resisting the US-led offensive in the Helmand province are led by a new crop of leaders devoted to Mulla Mohammad Omar, the Amir of the Afghan Taliban, but capable of operating independently without the need for directions from a central command and control.

6. The Taliban forces in the Helmand province have been following the same tactics as the Taliban had followed in the past and as Al Qaeda had followed in Tora Bora. This tactics consists of the bulk of the forces withdrawing from the battle zone into Pakistan or dispersing to their native villages, while a smaller number stayed put in the battle zone to inflict casualties and equipment damage to the advancing US-led troops and make their “victory” pyrrhic.

7.Though it is now a week since the battle started, the advance made by the US-led forces has been expectedly slow. This is partly due to the large planting of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and landmines by the Taliban along the expected route of advance of the US-led troops and partly due to the resistance to the advance put up by the Taliban forces still in the battle zone.........

11.Mr.Karzai apparently did not suspect that the Americans wanted to show him as being in the driving seat so that they could blame him tomorrow if the operation failed. A victory in the operation will be Mr.Obama’s, but a defeat will be Mr.Karzai’s. (21-2-10)