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Omar will be held, says Karzai
KANDAHAR, JAN. 6. The highest-ranking member of the Taliban under U.S. custody was being held aboard a warship on Sunday, and Afghanistan's Interim Prime Minister vowed that the fugitive Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, will be arrested eventually.
But Mullah Omar appeared to have eluded capture in Baghran, a mountainous region in central Afghanistan, where officials claimed a few days ago he was surrounded by anti- Taliban forces negotiating his surrender.
Visiting an orphanage in the Afghan capital, Kabul, the Prime Minister, Hamid Karzai, told The Associated Press that Mullah Omar, who is America's most wanted man after Osama bin Laden, would be taken into custody.
``We are looking for him, and we will arrest him,'' Mr. Karzai said.
The United States hopes a pair of high-profile prisoners will provide valuable intelligence about Osama's al- Qaeda network, blamed for the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, and the radical Taliban movement that gave the organisation a base of operations.
Marine Lt. James Jarvis told a news briefing that the Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, was in U.S. custody on a naval ship in the Arabian Sea.
Ibn Al-Shayk al-Libi, who ran al-Qaeda terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, was transferred on Saturday from anti-Taliban forces to U.S. authorities at Kandahar airport, controlled by the U.S. Marines.
``The big question, of course, is: Will they talk?'' former Central Intelligence Agency terrorism analyst, Stan Beddington, said on Saturday in the United States. ``If they are able to talk, I have no doubt whatsoever they will give a lot of information, particularly in the search for Osama.'' Lt. Jarvis said 25 new prisoners arrived on Saturday night in Kandahar from Pakistan, where they were intercepted trying to flee, bringing the total to 300. They were being interrogated for information on al-Qaeda in the area.
- AP
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