Kabul, Afghanistan — The Afghan foreign minister said Mullah Mohammad Omar was surrounded by anti-Taliban forces near the central city of Baghran, as U.S. troops and warplanes on Friday went after al-Qaida fighters in eastern Afghanistan.
Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan, said the location of Omar once the Taliban's supreme leader and now the second most wanted fugitive after Osama bin Laden was not certain, though there had been indications he was in the Baghran area.
"We don't know where Omar is. If we knew where Omar was, we would probably take pretty direct action," Franks told journalists at the headquarters of U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla.
He said Afghan officials in the southern city of Kandahar were negotiating with Taliban fighters near Baghran and that some had surrendered, handing over their weapons.
The Afghan foreign minister, Abdullah, said Omar was surrounded in the area, though he did not say if it was Afghan or American troops that had the Taliban leader penned in.
"If he is captured he will either be tried in Afghanistan or elsewhere," Abdullah, who goes by one name, said in the capital, Kabul. "That will be decided after we capture him."
Kandahar intelligence officials have said negotiations for Omar's surrender are under way with tribal leaders. But Kandahar's governor, Gul Agha, said Thursday his men were not negotiating with Omar. Instead, he said, they are continuing to search for him and to persuade tribal leaders to disarm.
Two Pakistani officials speaking on condition of anonymity said there was a possibility Omar could use negotiations as a cover as he tries to slip away. During the siege of Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan last month, Afghan commanders said al-Qaida fighters used surrender negotiations to buy time to flee.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said Washington and the Afghan government would oppose any deal or pause in operations that would allow Omar to escape.
Other developments Friday:
l An Army special forces soldier, Sgt. 1st Class Nathan Ross Chapman, 31, of San Antonio, was killed and a CIA agent wounded in an exchange of fire.
l The United States has arranged for Pakistan to turn over to U.S. control the Taliban's former ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, who would be one of the highest ranking Taliban officials to fall into U.S. hands, according to a senior defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
l Pakistan also has handed over the al-Qaida member who ran bin Laden's training camps in Afghanistan, U.S. officials said. Ibn Al-Shaykh al-Libi has been taken to Kandahar for questioning, a U.S. official said.
l In eastern Afghanistan, U.S. warplanes bombed for a second straight day an al-Qaida cave complex and compound at Zawar Kili, near Khost. The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press news agency reported that the bombardment Thursday near Khost killed 32 people. The report could not be confirmed independently.
lU.S. forces closed the first major forward base they had set up on Afghan soil. Camp Rhino, in the desert south of Kandahar, was returned to its original state a simple airstrip and turned over to the Afghan government.
l An advance team from the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne arrived at Kandahar airport to take it over from Marines.
l An additional 25 prisoners, most of them Afghans, arrived at Kandahar airport and were taken into U.S. custody. Overall, the number of Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners under U.S. control is about 270.
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