Pakistan's military has rejected western allegations that Taliban leader Mullah Omar is active in the country's southwestern province of Baluchistan, Press TV reported.
In an interview with a private TV Channel on Sunday, Maj. Gen. Saleem Nawaz, Inspector General of Baluchistan's Frontier Corps, called western media reports that the Taliban were operating from Quetta "sad, baseless and far from reality."
"It has become a habit of the western media to level allegations against Pakistan," Nawaz said.
The top military official was referring to recent reports by foreign media outlets, which claimed Mullah Omar had long been operating from Pakistan's Baluchistan Province, heading a leadership council known as the "Quetta Shura".
The reports also suggested that US drone attacks on the region are aimed at taking out the one-eyed, intensely secretive founder of the Afghan Taliban Movement.
US drone attacks -- which have seen a surge under the Obama administration's "Af-Pak" strategy -- have so far been confined to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in northwest Pakistan.
The attacks are allegedly aimed to target militants, but Pakistani media outlets say only 10 out of the 60 raids have managed to target militant hideouts. The indiscriminate air raids have drawn public's ire in the country for claiming the lives of hundreds of Pakistanis.
The drone attacks in Pakistan have already stirred-up such anti-American sentiments among Pakistanis that according to recent polls, the United States is now considered their number one enemy.
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