Talks for surrender of Omar reach 'crucial' stage

Associated Press WriterKABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Negotiations for the surrender of about 1,500 Taliban fighters, including their supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, have reached a "crucial stage" and a resolution was expected soon, an Afghan intelligence official said Thursday. U.S. officials have expressed doubt that Omar planned to give himself up.

Anti-Taliban leaders were working out final terms for the fighters holed up in near Baghran in the mountains of southern Afghanistan to give up, Nusrat Ullah, a senior intelligence official in the southern city of Kandahar, told The Associated Press by satellite telephone.

"We have received positive response from those tribal chieftains who are sheltering Omar and his associates in Baghran," he said. "A breakthrough in this regard is expected soon."

In Islamabad, the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, was arrested Thursday, said his nephew Hamid Ullah.

Zaeef was taken from his home in the afternoon and "since then, we have not heard any thing about him," Hamid Ullah told The Associated Press by telephone. He did not know why Zaeef was arrested.

While the Taliban were clinging to power under U.S. bombardment, Zaeef was the most prominent spokesman for the hard-line Islamic militia, which fell in December. He was also the Taliban's sole envoy abroad after Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates cut diplomatic ties.

No immediate comment was available from Pakistani authorities on his reported arrest.

In Kabul, the Afghan capital, some 320 Taliban prisoners were released by Afghanistan's new government after spending up to five years or more locked away by northern alliance groups.

Security Ministry officials called it a gesture of national reconciliation and that more releases would follow. It was not known if the prisoners included al-Qaida fighters.

"We are very pleased with the government," said Abdul Shukur, one of the newly freed prisoners. "God willing, I'm on my way home to see my family."

Most of the freed prisoners, who ranged in age from their late teens to their 50s, appeared to be in good health. In Kabul, they were handed over the village chiefs and tribal elders who pledged support to Prime Minister Hamid Karzai's new administration

Afghan officials in Kandahar have said that negotiations have been under way since Monday with tribal chiefs sheltering Mullah Omar and a corps of Taliban fighters near Baghran/

"We have received positive response from those tribal chieftains," said Nusrat Ullah, the intelligence official in Kandahar. Omar has been told that if he does not surrender by Saturday, the area where he is believed to be hiding may face American-led airstrikes.

"Mullah Omar is (the) murderer of thousands of Afghan people, and after his arrest, he would be handed over to the Kabul administration for a trial under existing laws," Ullah said.

But the Pentagon has expressed doubts that Omar -- who has been missing since the fall of Kandahar in early December -- was negotiating to surrender.

U.S. officials said some 1,000 to 1,500 Taliban fighters holding out near Baghran were trying to negotiate. "But I think it's a leap of faith if we believe that that is on the behalf of Mullah Omar himself," Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem told reporters on Wednesday.

In Jalalabad on Thursday, more than 800 fighters belonging to Nangarhar province's ruling council began hunting al-Qaida members, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press reported.

The hunt started in the Chaparhar area, between Jalalabad and Tora Bora, the last stand of al-Qaida fighters in eastern Afghanistan. The agency's report said fleeing al-Qaida members may be hiding there.

American Marines operating out of a base in Kandahar's airport have also been searching Taliban and al-Qaida facilities in the south. During a 29-hour mission that began Monday, Marines found documents, guns and other items that could be useful, defense officials said Wednesday.

About 200 Marines from the Kandahar airport bases searched a 14-building compound west of the city, trying to locate former Taliban rulers who went underground after the fall of Kandahar, one of their last strongholds.

Officials said Wednesday it was not specifically an effort to capture Omar or bin Laden.