AFGHANISTAN: American warplanes resumed bombing Afghanistan yesterday in the wake of Mullah Mohammad Omar's escape deeper into the mountains, an intelligence failure the US will try to rectify by interrogating its consolation prize of two senior Taliban and al-Qaeda officials.
At least six waves of bombers struck targets in eastern Afghanistan's Spinghar mountain range but there was no word of casualties, the Afghan Islamic Press said.
The interim prime minister, Mr Hamid Karzai, vowed to find and arrest Mullah Omar but intelligence leaders were divided over how and whether he had eluded Afghan troops in Helmand province at the weekend.
The Taliban leader reportedly broke a siege of Baghran village by escaping on a motorbike despite the presence of thousands of Afghan troops reinforced with US soldiers.
Intelligence officials aboard a US warship in the Arabian sea were preparing to question probably the highest-ranking member of the Taliban in US custody, Mr Abdul Salam Zaeef.
The Taliban's former ambassador to Pakistan was deported from Islamabad to Afghanistan on Saturday. He was handed over to the Americans after Pakistani authorities said the Islamic regime's collapse had deprived him of diplomatic immunity.
The UN refugee agency rejected Mr Zaeef's application for refugee status, but his two wives and six children may be allowed to stay in Pakistan.
Mr Zaeef could yield information about the networks sustaining his former boss, Mullah Omar, as well as Osama bin Laden.
As a reflection of his importance, Mr Zaeef was the first prisoner to be taken directly to a ship rather than parked in the US prison camp at Kandahar, where 25 new prisoners arrived at the weekend, swelling the inmate population to 300.
Later he could be moved to the maximum security detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Mr Zaeef's detention relieved intelligence officials, under pressure from Washington to convert the Taliban's collapse into high-profile prisoners.
Mr Zaeef, who has a reputation for wit and sophistication, is one of the very few leading Taliban to be captured.
From Afghan authorities the Americans also received custody of Mr Ibn Al-Shayk al-Libi, a Libyan suspected of running al-Qaeda's training camps in Afghanistan and considered knowledgeable about potential hiding places for his former boss, bin Laden.
"The big question, of course, is: will they talk?" said Mr Stan Beddington, a former CIA terrorism analyst. If they talked, he had "no doubt whatsoever" that they would give a lot of information, particularly in the search for bin Laden. A US marine spokesman, Lieut James Jarvis, confirmed that prisoners at Kandahar were being interrogated.
"We are looking for things we can act upon. We remain active in our quest to (uncover) al-Qaeda and Taliban," he said.
The hunt for Mullah Omar (42) veered into farce with reports that the one-eyed cleric eluded 2,000 soldiers who commanders claimed had surrounded his mountain redoubt at Baghran, 100 miles north of Kandahar.
If true, it suggested he was becoming ever more isolated, swapping a sizeable force of loyalists and the protection of a local chief, Mr Raees-e-Baghran, for just three companions also said to be on motorbikes.
President Bush told Americans to be patient. "We've only been at war for 90 days. That's not a very long period of time, but in 90 days we've made incredible progress." He added: "They think they can run, they think they can hide, because they think this country's soft and impatient. But they're gonna continue to learn the terrible lesson that says don't mess with America." - (Guardian Service)
In Kabul, the British-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) pursued its deployment to ensure the protection of the Karzai government.
By the end of January, the force should have reached its full strength of 4,500 troops, drawn mainly from western Europe, according to Maj Gen John McColl, who is overseeing the deployment.
The British military spokesman, Maj Guy Richardson, said Berlin was expected to clear the way yesterday for the arrival tomorrow of the first German troops; 119 French soldiers were scheduled to fly out of a French base yesterday to join 113 others already based north of Kabul, a spokesman in Paris said.