As both he and Bill Roggio note, it’s no big secret that Mullah Omar — the leader of the Taliban and former Afghan head of state — is being harbored somewhere in Pakistan. But it’s interesting to see a somewhat high-profile global leader admit as much.

“It’s not a secret for anyone, everyone knows that Mullah Omar is in Quetta, if he’s not now in Karachi,” Kouchner told French lawmakers, referring to two major Pakistani cities known to harbour militant cells.

Mullah Omar was the leader of the Taliban regime that was overthrown in Afghanistan by US-led forces in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks and is now thought to be based in Quetta.

“Taliban leaders have been given shelter in Pakistan. I’m not revealing anything,” Kouchner said, telling parliament’s foreign relations committee why Afghanistan has called on Pakistan to help negotiate a peace deal.

Common wisdom states that Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, obviously the head of Al Qaeda and his second-in-command, are also hiding somewhere in Pakistan.

That keeps them away from the coalition forces in Afghanistan, with the notable exception of unmanned drone air strikes, and in the general protection of the corrupt Pakistani military and intelligence services.

All three could realistically protect themselves in an area with enough of a civilian population that any strike would cause politically unpalatable levels of collateral damage. In short, use civilians as human shields. Disgusting by typical of these men and their organizations.