Anti-Taliban forces seek Afghanistan's Mullah Omar

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, January 02, 2002

Anti-Taliban forces seek Afghanistan's Mullah Omar

Anti-Taliban forces were poised on Tuesday to launch an operation to capture Mullah Mohammad Omar, the movement's shadowy leader and a top target of US troops still hunting the Taliban and al Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan.

As many as 2,000 militia fighters gathered in readiness to attack the mountain village in southern Afghanistan where Mullah Omar is believed to be hiding with Taliban loyalists, as anti-Taliban leaders first attempted to negotiate a peaceful surrender.

The capture of Mullah Omar is a top US priority because of his close association with Osama bin Laden, whose al Qaeda network is blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks that killed about 3,300 people in the United States and led to the US air campaign in Afghanistan.

US troops are still searching for bin Laden, who is believed to be still alive based on recent intelligence reports and thought to be either in eastern Afghanistan or across the border in Pakistan, and are also gathering intelligence information left behind by his al Qaeda operation.

U.S. Marines scoured a suspected enemy compound in Helmand province west of Kandahar on Tuesday, according to the US Central Command, who said they were not directly taking part in the hunt for Mullah Omar.

The Marines, who left their Kandahar base in a pre-dawn convoy with helicopter gunship support, searched buildings thought to have been used by al Qaeda and Taliban fighters.

Navy Commander Dan Keesee, a Central Command spokesman, said they were hunting for information that could be used in current or future operations against al Qaeda or Taliban forces.

``Their mission is not affiliated with any ongoing search for Mullah Omar or Osama bin Laden,'' he said.

There had been earlier reports that Marines may have been preparing to support Afghan allies in an assault on a village near Baghran, in northern Helmand, about 100 miles northwest of Kandahar, where Mullah Omar is thought to be hiding.

On Monday, a senior Defense Department official said there had been a ``fairly consistent body of intelligence'' suggesting Mullah Omar may be near Baghran.

GOAL 'TO GET OMAR'

The anti-Taliban intelligence chief in Kandahar said on Tuesday he had asked Taliban fighters in Helmand believed to be protecting Mullah Omar to hand over the spiritual leader or face attack.

``We have told them to give us Omar, but no ultimatum has been issued,'' Haji Gullalai told Reuters. ``We have two goals: to disarm irresponsible people and to get Omar, who is a criminal for the Afghan people and the whole world.''

He said he and tribal allies had assembled a force of up to 2,000 fighters and they were ready to try to capture the fugitive if he was not handed over.

Anger was simmering in Afghanistan over continued U.S. bombing despite the overthrow of the Taliban and the rout of al Qaeda.

A weekend bombing raid in the eastern part of the country that US military officials said destroyed a compound used by bin Laden's al Qaeda fighters and their Taliban allies, was said by a local tribal leader to have blasted a village and killed more than 100 civilians.

Since the United States began its bombing offensive in Afghanistan on Oct. 7, there have been several reports of apparently mistaken strikes on civilians.

CALLS FOR END TO BOMBING

Local Afghan leaders and the country's interim defense minister, Mohammed Fahim, have called for an end to the U.S. bombing campaign, but US officials and Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah have said the air campaign would continue for as long as it took to finish off the Taliban and al Qaeda.

President Bush said on Friday the campaign would end when his military commander, Gen. Tommy Franks, said it was over.

``The definition of success is making sure the Taliban's out of existence, helping rebuild Afghanistan and disrupting this international terrorist network, and we're doing a darn good job of it too,'' Bush said on Monday. ``There's no artificial time lines, or deadlines.''

A reconnaissance team from 12 nations contributing to an international security force in the Afghan capital, Kabul, was due to arrive early on Wednesday, two days after the Afghan administration and Britain initialed an agreement on deployment of about 4,500 foreign peacekeeping troops.

The party of 20 people from Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, Greece, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Romania will spend two days in Kabul surveying conditions, British forces spokesman Maj. Guy Richardson said.

``They have come across from their respective nations to identify what is required on the ground,'' he told reporters.

About 200 British troops would arrive in the capital in the first week of January, Richardson said. They will join some 300 British troops already in Kabul.

Pope John Paul II said in a New Year's Day sermon on Tuesday that violence in God's name was never justified and that the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States had shaken the world.

``No one, for any reason, can kill in the name of God,'' he said. ``Only forgiveness can quench the thirst for revenge and open the heart to a real and lasting reconciliation between peoples.''

``However humanly difficult it may seem to look toward the future with optimism, we must not give in to the temptation to be discouraged,'' he said on the Catholic Church's World Day of Peace. ``On the contrary, we must work toward peace with courage, confident that evil will not prevail.''

SEPT. 11 SUSPECT DUE IN COURT

Zacarias Moussaoui, the first al Qaeda suspect indicted on charges involving the Sept. 11 attacks, is due in US federal court on Wednesday to enter a plea on charges of conspiring with bin Laden and others to murder thousands of people.

As of Tuesday, US forces had taken control of 210 suspected al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, including a new batch handed over by Pakistani authorities.

The United Nations began immunizing 9 million Afghan children against measles on Tuesday in a project it hopes will prevent 35,000 deaths from the disease each year.

Thousands of mothers lined up with their children at some 200 vaccination centers at mosques and hospitals around Kabul in the first stage of the project that will cover the whole nation by March, UN officials said.

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