Prime minister - Search for Omar will keep going

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Afghanistan's interim leader promised Sunday that fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar will be tracked down, even as reports said the one-eyed cleric may have eluded capture and fled to another province.

Meanwhile, American officials said the highest-ranking Taliban official in U.S. custody -- former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan Abdul Salam Zaeef -- has been moved to an American warship.

The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press reported Sunday that U.S. forces and their Afghan allies, backed by airstrikes, were carrying out operations in the Spinghar mountain range of eastern Afghanistan near Jalalabad, where al-Qaida holdouts were suspected to be hiding. It said 40 were arrested and handed over to the Americans.

Visiting an orphanage in Kabul, Prime Minister Hamid Karzai told The Associated Press that Omar, America's most wanted man after Osama bin Laden, will be taken into custody when found.

"We are looking for him, and we will arrest him," Karzai said.

Omar appeared to have eluded capture in Baghran, in mountainous central Afghan-istan, where government officials claimed a few days ago he was surrounded by anti-Taliban forces negotiating his surrender.

Omar's close associate, Abdul Wahid, is the tribal chief there.

Reports from some former Taliban soldiers say Omar and his former intelligence chief, Abdul Razzak, may be in Zabul province, north of Kandahar.

Hunt for bin Laden

Meanwhile, two members of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee said Sunday officials are beginning to believe that bin Laden has fled Afghanistan, possibly for Pakistan.

Sen. John Edwards, traveling with other senators in the region, told "Fox News Sunday" that Uzbekistan's military intelligence service believes bin Laden has crossed into Pakistan.

The United States hopes a pair of high-profile prisoners will provide valuable intelligence about bin Laden's al-Qaida network, blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, and the radical Taliban movement that gave it a base of operations.