Omar faces joint assault

2002-01-01 18:56

Kabul - US and Afghan forces are preparing a massive operation to flush out ousted Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, an Afghan intelligence chief said on Tuesday, as US Marines reportedly launched an operation to find him.

The moves to drive Omar out of his latest highland hideout in the south of the country were stepped up, as a Western official said that 149 soldiers from 18 countries were flying out to join a British-led security mission in Kabul.

Haji Gulalai, chief of intelligence in Kandahar province, said the operation involving 4 000 to 5 000 Afghan soldiers backed by US Marines had originally been due to start early on Tuesday.

However, tribal leaders urged a postponement of "three or four days" to allow negotiations on a weapons hand-over, he said, denying reports the "clean-up operation" had already been launched.

"Tribal elders from Helmand province requested us not to launch this operation and have asked us to solve the issue of collecting arms and also the issue of Mullah Omar through talks and negotiations," he said.

"The clean-up operation which was supposed to be launched today, has been postponed for three or four days."

Earlier CNN had reported from Kandahar airport that "a couple of hundred" US Marines were carrying out an operation against a compound in Helmand province to "find intelligence relating to al-Qaeda and the Taliban".

Meanwhile, scores of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda followers were to be taken from Pakistani custody to a US base in Afghanistan to face interrogation about the fate of the Saudi-born radical, Islamabad's Dawn daily said.

US President George W Bush predicted that bin Laden would be caught "pretty soon", but a US military spokesperson denied reports that US Marines were closing in on Mullah Omar.

The US military campaign against the remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaeda ran into controversy on Monday after villagers claimed that at least 70 civilians were killed in a US air-raid on a suspected arms dump.

The Pentagon blamed al-Qaeda for any civilian deaths, claiming that the hardline Islamic group was hiding among the local population, and on Tuesday an Afghan official of the new post-Taliban government backed its position.

Border Affairs Minister Amanullah Zadran said bombing was the only way to destroy a large cache of weapons stored in a house guarded by Taliban and al-Qaeda sympathisers in the village of Nizai Qala in Paktia province.

"There was no intention to kill innocent people," he said. "In Afghanistan we have a proverb: when dry wood burns you can also burn wet wood."

A US military spokesperson acknowledged that some civilians could have died in the raid, but insisted that the night-long bombardment had been necessary.

"It is well known to us that there were al-Qaeda/Taliban leadership (in the village). That is why we attacked the compound," said Major Bill Harrison. "We feel it was a legitimate military target."

Since the collapse of Taliban control, both bin Laden, who has been blamed for the September 11 attacks on US cities, and Mullah Omar have fled their former Afghan strongholds and pursuing US-led troops.

Bin Laden is widely rumoured to have left the country, but recent reports suggest that Omar and a hardcore of his armed followers are holed up in high-ground northwest of his former Kandahar headquarters in Helmand province.

US media reported on Tuesday that a force of US Marines based in Kandahar had set off in helicopters to Omar's supposed new base in Baghran but a spokesperson for US Central Command in Tampa, Florida denied this.

Instead, according to CNN, the Marines and allied Afghan forces were headed to a large compound in Helmand where they hoped to seize information on Omar and his remaining supporters.

CNN said the Marines had not been involved in any combat and were working alongside anti-Taliban forces loyal to Kandahar strongman Gul Agha.

Bush, speaking near his ranch in Crawford, Texas, did not respond directly to the latest reports of US military action, but said: "Bin Laden is on the run, and any time you get a person running, it means you're going to get him pretty soon... It's just a matter of time."

Officials in Afghanistan's new government have repeatedly claimed that bin Laden has left Afghan territory for Pakistan - a claim denied by Islamabad - as have many of his surviving al-Qaeda fighters.

US network ABC News, quoting unnamed military officials, reported that US armed forces had "circumstantial but compelling" evidence that bin Laden was alive and still in charge of his followers.

The report quoted one of the officials as saying the United States had intercepted al-Qaeda communications originating in Iran.

Efforts to pinpoint bin Laden have included questioning al-Qaeda and Taliban members captured by US and allied forces in Afghanistan, and on Tuesday a Pakistani daily reported that fighters caught in Pakistan had been handed over.

About 150 arrested bin Laden followers will be shifted from a northern Pakistani jail in Kohat to a US prison camp in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar for more intensive interrogation, Dawn said, citing official sources.

The newspaper said the detained al-Qaeda men - mostly from Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other unspecified Arabian peninsula countries - would be flown to Kandahar in batches.

US forces built a prison camp at Kandahar airport after Marines moved in to occupy the facility last month.

A US military spokesman said Monday that Washington was holding 180 prisoners from al-Qaeda or the former ruling Taliban militia which had sheltered bin Laden - 164 are being held in Kandahar.

Seventy British troops arrived in Kabul on Monday as Afghan Interior Minister Yunus Qanooni and British Major General John McColl, who is to lead the international force, finally signed an agreement setting up an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

The multinational force will number between 3 000 and 4 000 troops to help provide security as the new government of interim leader Hamid Karzai tries to rebuild the nation after the ouster of the hard-line Taliban militia.

Britain will lead the force for the first three months of its six-month deployment in Afghanistan, and its troops will be joined by a large German contingent and forces from 17 other nations.

There are fears that the US-led "coalition against terror" could be weakened by tensions between Pakistan and India, which came to a head last month after Delhi accused Islamabad of sponsoring an attack on its parliament.

Both countries have massed thousands of troops at their frontier, mainly in the disputed Kashmir region, and there has been cross-border shelling.

But Pakistan has launched a crack-down on the Kashmiri separatist groups held responsible for the latest attacks on Indian targets - arresting at least 100 officials and activists - easing tensions and winning US praise. - Sapa-AFP

- SAPA