The US military detained the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan but its main targets, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and Osama bin Laden, continued to elude Afghan and US forces.
Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban's principal spokesman during the war in Afghanistan and the vanquished movement's highest-ranking official to be captured, joined hundreds of detainees facing interrogation by US officials seeking intelligence for their war on terrorism.
But Omar, the reclusive cleric who once ruled over almost all of Afghanistan, and bin Laden, accused by Washington of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks that killed more than 3,000 people, remained at large.
According to a report from the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, Omar escaped on a motorcycle as anti-Taliban forces closed in on a mountainous area in southern Afghanistan where he was believed to be hiding.
Bombing continues
The Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) reported yesterday that US aircraft had bombed several targets suspected of links to bin Laden's al-Qaeda network in the Spinghar mountain range of eastern Afghanistan.
The Pakistan-based AIP said the jets flew at least six sorties over the area on Saturday night. The region was also being combed by US ground troops and Afghan tribal forces.
The report could not be independently confirmed.
The new US envoy to Kabul, Zalmay Khalilzad, said the US bombing campaign, launched on Oct. 7, would continue until its aims were met, despite concern among Afghanistan's new leaders over civilian casualties.
"Messages I have received, based on my telephone discussions with Afghan leaders, is that they are very supportive of the campaign," Khalilzad said in Kabul on Saturday.
Zaeef, a bespectacled 34-year-old ethnic Pashtun who had sought political asylum in Pakistan after that country broke diplomatic ties with the Taliban, was deported back to his home country and immediately detained by US forces.
A total of 307 Taliban and al-Qaeda members are now under interrogation.
US forces have also taken custody of Ibn Al-Shaykh al-Libi, who ran some of bin Laden's training camps. Detained in Kandahar, he became the highest-ranking al-Qaeda member captured in the war.
The detainees are sure to face questions about the whereabouts of both bin Laden and Omar, who apparently eluded capture a day after the new rulers in Kabul said they felt close to capturing him at Baghran, 160km northwest of Kandahar.
Adding to the confusion, a spokesman for Kandahar's governor, Gul Agha, said Omar may not even have been in Baghran, where local tribal elders believed he had sought refuge after surrendering Kandahar on Dec. 7.
The governor of the southerly Helmand province, Mullah Sher Mohammad Akhandzada, said almost 200 tonnes of ammunition and dozens of large weapons had been recovered from Baghran fighters during a three-day tour of the region accompanied by US troops.
But he said three local leaders who handed in their weapons had made clear to him that Omar was not in the area.
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