International
Trail for Omar, Osama grows cold, no clues
KANDAHAR, JAN. 5. The trail for the world's two most wanted men turned cold today after Afghan officials said Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, had fled a mountainous southern area and Osama bin laden was on the run.
The Taliban supreme leader, Mullah Omar had been hiding out in the remote Baghran region in a northern corner of Helmand province since fleeing his powerbase in the southern city of Kandahar on December seven, but had now disappeared, officials said.
``There aren't any Taliban and al-Qaeda in Baghran now,'' said an official speaking for Kandahar intelligence chief, Haji Gullalai. ``Mullah Omar is also not in Baghran.'' We know from our intelligence that Mullah Omar is not in Baghran, and not in Helmand province. He is somewhere else,'' said the official, who declined to be identified.
``I don'T know where Mullah Omar is now,'' he said.
Tribal elders and U.S. forces had thought Mullah Omar had taken refuge in mountainous Baghran, a northern corner of southern Helmand province, after he surrendered Kandahar on December seven.
His disappearance, just days after U.S. officials said they had lost all trace of Osama, is embarrassing for the new interim administration in Kabul as well as for the United States, with special forces on the ground backed by jets and spy planes prowling the skies.
Washington holds the reclusive cleric responsible for providing Osama and his al-Qaeda network with a safe haven from which to carry out its operations against U.S. and other targets and has put a bounty on Mullah Omar's head.
Mullah Omar, who gave refuge to Osama after he arrived in Afghanistan in 1996, may still be in contact with the suspected mastermind of the September 11 attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center and sliced into the Pentagon, Afghan officials have said.
While some Taliban and opposition commanders in Baghran had surrendered, Osama had disappeared into the inhospitable jagged mountains and steep-sided canyons of Afghanistan.
``There were some local commanders there and we talked to them,'' said the official in Kandahar.
``Some of them have surrendered and others are expected to surrender soon,'' he said.
But the greatest prize appeared to have escaped the net - apparently in a convoy of motorcycles, the BBC reported.
``There is no fighting, we are talking,'' said the official, adding that no U.S. forces were now in Baghran.
A day earlier, new Foreign Minister, Abdullah Abdullah, said in Kabul that the cleric who founded the fundamentalist Taliban was probably in Baghran and may be sent to an international tribunal as a war criminal when caught.
But Amir Mohammad Akhandzada, chieftain of the town of Kajaki and brother of Mullah Sher Mohammad Akhandzada, Governor of Helmand province, was adamant that he was not in the region.
``If Mullah Omar was here, if we knew he was here and we captured him we would kill him ourselves,'' he told Reuters yesterday.
The Taliban, a radical group that forced men to grow beards, confined women to home and banned music and television in its interpretation of Islam, swept to power in Afghanistan in 1996 and governed until Kabul fell in November.
Through what locals say was their brutality, they made many enemies.
Among those unable to find a friend was former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef.
Pakistan had decided to send him back to his own country, dismissing his request for asylum on the grounds that other Taliban might follow suit, officials said.
``The decision has been taken to send him back to his country,'' an interior ministry official said.
``It will be done shortly, maybe today or tomorrow.'' Mr. Zaeef, one of the the best-known faces of the vanquished Taliban militia as their only spokesman during the war, was picked up from his home in Islamabad on Thursday for questioning.
He was believed to be being held in the northwestern border city of Peshawar.
However, fighting was under way in the east, where the U.S. forces believe units of al-Qaeda - were regrouping.
An elite U.S. army soldier was killed by enemy fire near the eastern city of Gardez, capital of Paktia province, yesterday as U.S. General Tommy Franks, commanding the 90-day war, praised progress there in destroying al-Qaeda.
The special forces soldier, identified as Sgt. 1st class Nathan Ross Chapman, 31, of San Antonio, Texas, became the first U.S. military casualty from hostile fire in the country.
Nine other U.S. troops and a CIA agent have died in or near Afghanistan as part of the war.
A CIA agent was also wounded in yesterday's exchange of fire near Gardez.
Gen. Franks said the death of the soldier, part of a U.S. team cooperating with tribal elements, was a reminder of the danger still facing American forces despite the overthrow of the Taliban and the capture of major cities as they pursue Taliban fighters and those of Osama's militant islamic guerillas.
Gardez is west of Khost, an area that was raked by U.S. bombs on Thursday and yesterday. The strikes were aimed at an al-Qaeda camp outside Khost where members of the guerilla network have gone in the past to regroup, U.S. officials said.
- Reuters
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