U.S.: No deal for Omar

Los Angeles Times And Associated Press

WASHINGTON – With intelligence reports zeroing in on Mullah Mohammed Omar’s suspected location and suggesting he may be negotiating a surrender, Pentagon officials warned Afghan allies Wednesday that they expect any deal to put the Taliban leader in U.S. hands.

As a Pentagon official declared Osama bin Laden’s trail cold in the snowcapped mountains of Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan, U.S. forces and Afghan allies focused on reports that America’s second-most-wanted man is entrenched with Taliban forces in the mountains around Baghran in west-central Afghanistan.

Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem said U.S. special operations soldiers are “on the hunt” for Omar and his Taliban holdouts, and Afghan commander Jamal Khan said Afghan military leaders have been negotiating with people loyal to Omar for two days.

Still chafing from a previous surrender of Taliban troops that allowed Omar to escape the southern stronghold of Kandahar, Pentagon officials have pressured Afghan leaders not to let that happen again.

Anti-Taliban officials in Kandahar, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said the tribal leaders had been given “a clear message” to turn over Omar or face airstrikes from U.S.-led forces.

U.S. and Afghan anti-Taliban interests have diverged more than once. In Kandahar in early December, local commanders who were mostly interested in controlling the southern city had said they had crafted a deal that would put Omar in their custody. Instead, Omar and hundreds, if not thousands, of pro-Taliban fighters melted into the countryside.

Some Pentagon officials think ethnic Pashtuns probably agreed to look the other way while their fellow Pashtuns escaped. In Tora Bora, U.S. officials have had trouble persuading Afghan allies to continue searching caves vacated by members of bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist network.

The U.S. commander of the Joint Special Operations Task Force said bin Laden isn’t likely to be found in the caves of Tora Bora.

“I don’t think he’s up there,” Col. John Mulholland said. “I do think he’s either dead, buried under some tonnage of rock or he’s out of there.”

Although the top leaders have eluded anti-Taliban forces, an airstrike last week reportedly succeeded in killing the Taliban’s intelligence chief, Qari Ahmadulla. He was believed to be the highest-ranking Taliban official killed in the American-led campaign in Afghanistan.

Ahmadullah, 40, was killed by U.S. bombings of Naka, in Paktia province, said Abdullah Tawheedi, a deputy intelligence minister for the interim government in Kabul. He was among 25 people killed in Naka on Dec. 27, when U.S. planes attacked a house where he was staying, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press reported.