Omar eludes capture; 2 others not so lucky

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Muslim cleric who is No. 2 on the American target list, has evaded a manhunt and vanished from the mountainous area in which he was believed to be hiding, Afghan officials said Saturday.

They said Omar had fled the region around the hamlet of Baghran, in south-central Afghanistan, possibly on a motorcycle. The team of U.S. Army Special Forces and anti-Taliban Afghan troops who had been searching for him gave up the hunt and left Saturday.

For the past week, the same Afghans have claimed that a noose was tightening around Omar and hundreds of diehard Taliban loyalists in the area, as mujahedeen fighters closed on their suspected positions in the rugged mountains near Baghran.

"There aren't any Taliban or al-Qaida in Baghran now," said Haji Gallalai, intelligence chief for the Kandahar region. "Mullah Omar is also not in Baghran."

Even as Omar seemingly eluded capture, U.S. forces in Afghanistan took custody of the Taliban's former ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef. He was deported from Pakistan after being held by authorities there.

American forces also have taken custody of Ibn Al-Shaykh Al-Libi, who ran some of Osama bin Laden's training camps. American officials think Al-Libi could provide valuable intelligence information.

Al-Libi, a Libyan, is being held at a detention center at the Kandahar airport and soon will be flown to the amphibious ship Bataan in the northern Arabian Sea, military officials said. The Bataan is holding eight other high-profile prisoners, including John Walker, the 20-year-old Californian found fighting with the Taliban.

Al-Libi was responsible for paramilitary training at a bin Laden camp in Afghanistan known as Al Khaldan, one of al-Qaida's largest. Al-Libi is a close associate of Abu Zubaydah, one of bin Laden's top confidants.

Zaeef, the former envoy, is the most senior of 307 Taliban and al-Qaida captives held by American troops. He is the cleric who became the public face of the Taliban after the Sept. 11 attacks, defending Afghanistan's religious regime and bin Laden in news conferences in Islamabad.

The Pakistan Foreign Ministry announced his deportation Saturday. Pakistan authorities said Zaeef has been questioned by Pakistani intelligence officers and FBI agents in Pakistan, but apparently could not be arrested in that country because of diplomatic protocol.

"He was asked to leave the country, which he did," said a Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman, Aziz Ahmed Khan.

In Kandahar, Gallalai, the intelligence chief, speculated that Omar -- the religious leader who plunged his homeland into war with the United States by refusing to surrender bin Laden -- might have made a getaway by motorcycle. Bin Laden is the only person the Americans want more than Omar, whose slaying or capture would be considered a major coup.

Though they had publicly expressed a strong desire to find Omar, Afghan officials seemed unperturbed by his disappearance -- an attitude that also applied to bin Laden.

Their obvious indifference to the whereabouts of the two most-wanted fugitives in the world underscored the difficulties the United States faces in tracking down bin Laden and Omar in a land notorious for shifting loyalties, deadly intrigue and treachery.

The new U.S. presidential envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilizad, arrived in the capital city of Kabul on Saturday, while President Bush said in Washington that a U.S. soldier killed in an ambush near the Pakistan border on Friday "lost his life for a cause that is just and important.

"That cause is security of the American people (and) freedom of the civilized world," Bush said.

In Afghanistan, American troops expressed shock and sorrow at the ambush slaying of Army Sgt. 1st Class Nathan Ross Chapman, the 31-year-old Green Beret from San Antonio, Texas, killed in a firefight in Paktia province. He was the first U.S. military member killed by enemy fire in the 3-month-old conflict.

A CIA officer wounded in the same exchange of small-arms fire remained in serious condition.

The Green Beret and the intelligence operative, who was not identified, had just departed a meeting with Pashtun tribal leaders, apparently to coordinate strikes against the Taliban and al-Qaida, when they came under fire, according to U.S. military officials. The two-man team was operating out of the town of Khost, near the Pakistan border.

U.S. forces have succeeded in smashing the Taliban militia that imposed an often brutal form of Islam on Afghans, and have destroyed the hideouts and training camps of the al-Qaida terrorists that the Taliban sheltered. But they have failed in another mission: to capture Omar and bin Laden.

The trail for both has gone cold. Last week, Afghan government officials boasted that mujahedeen were on the verge of capturing Omar near the settlement of Baghran, in the remote mountains 100 miles northwest of Kandahar. But Saturday, those officials said the cleric had mysteriously vanished, or perhaps had never been in Baghran.

The officials offered little in the way of explanation.

"Mohammed Omar is obviously becoming a question mark. ... We know that he is on the run," said Omar Samad, spokesman for Afghanistan's Foreign Ministry. "The interim administration is resolved to continue the pursuit of Mullah Omar."

"It doesn't matter to us whether he escaped on a motorbike, on a bike, on a donkey or on foot," Samad said. "The goal is, he needs to be arrested, he needs to be brought to justice."

He said no decision has been made on how Omar might be tried if he is captured by Afghan authorities.

In other developments:

The Afghan Foreign Ministry expressed concern over civilian casualties from U.S. bombs. A ministry official called for greater coordination with the U.S. forces to "avert and avoid further civilian losses."

Britain's Foreign Office said it was trying to confirm reports that three Britons had been captured who were fighting with the Taliban.

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