The West at War: OMAR FLEES ON HIS BIKE

0 Comments | Sunday Mirror, Jan 6, 2002 | by GERARD COUZENS

TOPPLED Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar was on the run again last night after fleeing his mountain hideout - on an old motorbike.

He escaped despite earlier claims by anti-Taliban forces that they had surrounded a village where he was holed up.

The vanishing act by the world's most wanted man after Osama bin Laden is his second since surrendering the stronghold of Kandahar a month ago.

It is a huge embarrassment to American military chiefs.

Omar's escape came as US forces in Afghanistan took custody of the warlord responsible for training al-Qaeda terrorists.

Ibn Al-Shaykh al-Libi - captured in Pakistan - is the highest- ranking associate of bin Laden to be arrested.

He is thought to have trained Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th jet hijacker now in custody in the States over the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington.

A Pentagon official said al-Libi was being held at Kandahar Airport along with 300 other al-Qaeda and Taliban captives.

Omar's escape is a major setback for the US and the new Afghan interim government which had made capturing the deposed Taliban leader a priority.

Afghan foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah had claimed one-eyed Omar and 1,500 al-Qaeda fighters were encircled near Baghran, 120 miles north west of Kandahar.

Anti-Taliban intelligence officers gave him a 48-hour deadline on Thursday to surrender - or face renewed US air strikes.

But as the deadline lapsed yesterday and anti-Taliban forces closed in on the hideaway, he was reported to have fled the area.

Intelligence chief Haji Gulalai said: "Mullah Omar is not in Baghran. He is somewhere else. I don't know where he is now." Omar's disappearance on his Russian-made veteran Cossack motorbike is the second time he has successfully escaped.

He was also able to sneak away from Kandahar shortly after his surrender on December 7.

The latest setback comes just days after US officials said they could find no trace of bin Laden, despite a multi-billion-dollar operation involving special forces on the ground backed by jets and spy planes.

But the Allies did have one success, with Pakistan deporting former Taliban ambassador Mullah Adbul Salam Zaeef who was reported to be in American hands.

Foreign ministry spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan said: "He was asked to leave the country which he did." Zaeef - one of only three Taliban ambassadors before September 11 - became the face of the vicious regime following the atrocities in America.

In London the Foreign Office was last night trying to confirm whether three men suspected of fighting with the Taliban and al- Qaeda forces were British.

The men, who are being held in Shibergan prison in northern Afghanistan, told the Red Cross they are British nationals.

They are thought to have been arrested by Afghan warlord General Rashid Dostum.