Obama Administration Silent on Details of Taliban Leader's Detention

All that is known is that Baradar was apprehended in Karachi by a joint CIA-Pakistani operation and that he "was talking," one Pakistani officer told the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

"This involves very sensitive intelligence matters," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said. "This involves the collection of intelligence, and it is best to do that and not to necessarily talk about it."

Baradar is being held in Pakistan by local authorities for the time being, but other options have been somewhat limited by new NATO rules -- and by President Obama's own policies.

In January 2009, Obama issued an executive order banning so-called "black sites," classified locations where CIA and overseas security officials interrogated terrorists, and another executive order calling for the closure of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The rules have changed for holding detainees on the battlefield, as well. Last summer, NATO instituted a 96-hour rule, which says that if any NATO or International Security Assistance Force soldiers, including Americans, can't transfer captured terrorists or enemy combatants to the Afghan justice system within 96 hours, they have to be released.

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