Kabul, Afghanistan — American bombs killed the Taliban's intelligence chief, the new Afghan government confirmed Wednesday, and a tribal commander reported that negotiations were under way for the surrender of the ousted Taliban supreme leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar.
In Washington, Pentagon officials said they doubted Omar was seeking to surrender. Some 1,000 to 1,500 Taliban fighters holding out near Baghran are trying to "negotiate themselves out of a predicament," spokesman Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem told reporters. "But I think it's a leap of faith if we believe that that is on the behalf of Mullah Omar himself."
The United States had identified the intelligence chief, Qari Ahmadullah, as one of the Taliban leaders it was hunting. 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.
According to Raz Mohammed Khan Lunai, Tawheedi's representative in neighboring Ghazni province, Ahmadullah was hit by airstrikes while trying to flee on a motorcycle. Lunai said he witnessed Ahmadullah's Dec. 31 burial in a remote and sparsely populated area of Ghazni.
Second-most wanted man
In southern Afghanistan, a commander said military leaders have been negotiating with tribal elders from the Baghran region believed to be sheltering Mullah Omar.
Jamal Khan, a commander for Haji Gulalai, intelligence chief in the southern city of Kandahar, told The Associated Press that negotiations have been held since Monday for the surrender of Omar, the second-most wanted man on the U.S. list of terrorist fugitives after Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden is the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Also Wednesday, the U.S. commander of the Joint Special Operations Task Force said bin Laden isn't likely to be found in the caves in the Tora Bora area of eastern Afghanistan.
"I don't think he's up there," Col. John Mulholland told reporters at a U.S. special forces forward operating base outside Afghanistan. "I do think he's either dead, buried under some tonnage of rock or he's out of there."
Still hiding
Other U.S. commanders said American military teams are still searching the Tora Bora caves for anything that might help dismantle bin Laden's al-Qaida network or locate bin Laden.
Other anti-Taliban officials in Kandahar, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, told AP the tribal leaders had been given "a clear message" to turn over Omar or face airstrikes from U.S.-led forces. For the past few days, U.S. planes have dropped leaflets warning villagers not to shelter Taliban or al-Qaida members, residents said.
Omar has been in hiding since the fall of Kandahar, the last main Taliban stronghold, a month ago.
Baghran, a mountainous region north of the U.S. Marine base at Kandahar airport, is in the same general area where Marines and anti-Taliban soldiers launched a major military operation. Marines in full combat gear were dispatched in convoys and helicopters from the Kandahar base late Monday.
Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah, who uses only one name, said his government did not know where Omar was.
"I think Mullah Omar is still hiding somewhere in Afghanistan. His whereabouts is not known neither to us nor to the coalition, I gather," he told ABC-TV's "Good Morning America. "But sooner or later he will be captured."
Other developments:
A coalition of groups began a three-month, $8 million immunization program to vaccinate 9 million Afghan children against measles. The program is being carried out by the Ministry of Public Health, the U.N. Children's Fund, the World Health Organization and other non-governmental organizations.
The U.S. Central Command confirmed that Marines searched a former Taliban and al-Qaida compound in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province on Tuesday.
Six major Islamic parties in Pakistan including three pro-Taliban groups that organized protests against the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan announced a new alliance aimed at winning more political offices.
Peacekeeping efforts
Meanwhile, a 12-nation advance team for Afghanistan's international peacekeeping force arrived in Kabul late Tuesday to assess logistics for a full-scale arrival of foreign troops later this month.
The first French soldiers to join the peacekeeping force reached Kabul on Wednesday, the French military said. Around 70 troops should be in place by the end of the week, and by January the French contingent should total around 500.
Turkey said it has volunteered to assume command of the international peacekeeping force in Afghanistan when Britain's mandate expires in three months. A decision is pending.
The peacekeeping force, expected to number up to 5,000, are tasked to keep security under the interim government led by Hamid Karzai, which is to run the country for six months.
The logistics team that arrived Wednesday is made up of representatives from Germany, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Norway, Romania, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands, said British Col. Richard Barrens, chief of staff at the headquarters of the International Security Assistance Force.
British military leaders and Afghan leaders will hold meetings in the next few says to assess where to deploy troops outside the capital, said Guy Richardson, a spokesman for British security forces. The officials will take trips outside Kabul to examine locations, he said.
Several main roads are considered unsafe to travel because of armed bandits, and sporadic fights with pockets of al-Qaida fighters have been reported.
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