PAKISTAN

WASHINGTON: The Pakistani intelligence service has set free at least two senior Afghan Taliban militants even as it helped the United States detain the Taliban's second-ranking commander in the area, The Washington Post reported late Saturday.

Citing unnamed US officials, the newspaper said the releases had occurred as the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, or ISI, worked with US intelligence operatives to capture Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and other insurgents.

The quiet actions by the ISI were detected by US intelligence agencies but not publicly disclosed, the report said.

According to the paper, US military and intelligence officials said there were evidences that parts of Pakistan's security establishment continued to support the Taliban.

The US officials declined to identify the Taliban figures who were released because of the secrecy surrounding US monitoring of the ISI, The Post noted.

But the freed captives were senior Taliban members the United States wanted in its custody, the report said.

The capture of Baradar was "positive, any way you slice it," the paper quoted one of the unnamed US counterterrorism officials as saying. "But it doesn't mean they've cut ties at every level to each and every group."