As the US military closed its southern desert base, regional Afghan officials said they were negotiating with tribal leaders to surrender weapons as they scoured more mountain areas yesterday for the Taliban's deposed leader and 1,500 of his fighters.
One employee of Kandahar's intelligence chief said Wednesday that the village where Taliban spiritual leader Mullah Mohammed Omar is believed to be hiding was "surrounded," though he did not identify the location.
In Washington, US officials said no deal had been offered to the second-most-wanted man after Osama bin Laden.
The US Marines' desert base, called Camp Rhino, has closed and the US Army's 101st Airborne is taking over security at Kandahar's airport from the Marines, Captain Stewart Upton said yesterday.
The handover suggests the area has been secured and the operations have moved into a new phase.
At the daily US Marine Corps' briefing in Kandahar, Upton said an advance guard of airborne troops had arrived at the airport and the Marines unit would be packing and returning to navy ships in the Arabian Sea.
The governor of the southern city of Kandahar, Gul Agha, said Thursday his men were not negotiating with Omar but were continuing to search for him.
Also, they are trying to persuade tribal leaders to disarm. If Omar doesn't agree to be arrested, the Baghran region in the mountains north of Kandahar where he is believed to be hiding faces possible bombing by US warplanes, Afghan and Pakistani military officials said.
Nasrat Ullah, a secretary for Kandahar intelligence chief Haji Gulalai, said negotiations for Omar's surrender were "continuing" yesterday. "The village where Omar is, is surrounded," he said.
Asked about talks for Omar's surrender, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in Washington that the US would not approve of any negotiations "which would result in the freeing of people who ought not to be freed," including those involved in terrorism or harboring terrorists.
"I know that the interim government is right on the same sheet of music with us, with respect to this. They want the Taliban caught," Rumsfeld said.
And on Thursday, US warplanes struck a military compound in eastern Afghanistan where al-Qaeda members reportedly were regrouping, the Pentagon said. It was the first American airstrike since Dec. 28.
The Afghan Islamic Press news agency reported that the bombardment killed 32 people and continued into yesterday.
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