Pakistanis Capture Taliban Commander

The Dadullah family has had a string of bad luck. First, the Taliban inner circle member Mullah Dadullah got killed in a NATO attack a year ago when the Americans imposed a much more aggressive strategy in dealing with Taliban probes and ambushes. Now his brother Mansoor, a top field commander for the Taliban, finds himself a prisoner of the Pakistani Army after losing a shootout:

Pakistani security forces captured a top figure in the Taliban militia fighting U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan along with four other militants Monday, a military official said.
Mansoor Dadullah, brother of the Taliban’s slain military commander Mullah Dadullah, was among five militants captured after a shootout near a seminary in Zhob district of southwestern Baluchistan province around 10 a.m., a local intelligence official told The Associated Press.

Once again, we have a surrender from the top levels of the Taliban rather than a fight to the death. For a mullah, that seems rather strange. Aren’t the mullahs of the Taliban the ones preaching the joys of martyrdom, and how death pleases Allah?
But like many other leaders of the jihadi movement, their asceticism apparently doesn’t allow them the joys of suicide and certain death. They have to sacrifice by capitulating when confronted by superior military forces. One can only imagine the heartbreak that these religious/military leaders have to face when they have to eschew a pointless death and bitterly accept the continuance of their lives.
The capture of Dadullah gives the Pakistanis, and hopefully NATO, a great intel opportunity. It’s possible that Dadullah’s high-level contacts could produce the whereabouts of Mullah Omar, and perhaps even Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. Now that the news of his capture has gone out through the media, those people may have to relocate quickly and find new safe houses — actions that could flush them out into view long enough for a Predator to find them.