KABUL - United States-backed Afghan forces vying for the honour of capturing fugitive Taleban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar gathered in southern Afghanistan to march on a mountain village where he was believed to be hiding.
In the Afghan capital, Kabul, a reconnaissance team from 12 nations contributing to an international security force that will work with the interim Government in the city arrived yesterday.
The intelligence chief in the former Taleban stronghold of Kandahar, Haji Gullalai, said earlier that as many as 2000 fighters were closing in on Omar and die-hard Taleban fighters who may be protecting him.
"We have two goals - to disarm irresponsible people and to get Omar, who is a criminal for the Afghan people and the whole world."
Omar, the protector of Osama bin Laden and second only to bin Laden on Washington's wanted list, is thought to be in a village near the town of Baghran in Helmand province, 160km northwest of Kandahar.
US troops are still searching for bin Laden, who is believed to be either in eastern Afghanistan or across the border in Pakistan.
They are also gathering intelligence information left behind by his al Qaeda network.
US Marines scoured a compound in Helmand province on Tuesday, according to the US Central Command, which said they were not directly taking part in the hunt for Omar.
The Marines left their Kandahar base in a pre-dawn convoy with helicopter gunship support and searched buildings thought to have been used by al Qaeda and Taleban fighters.
Navy Commander Dan Keesee, a Central Command spokesman, said they were seeking information that could be used in operations against al Qaeda or Taleban forces.
"Their mission is not affiliated with any ongoing search for Mullah Omar or Osama bin Laden," he said.
Earlier reports suggested Marines may have been preparing to support Afghan allies in an assault on the village near Baghran.
Gullalai said yesterday that he had asked Taleban fighters in Helmand believed to be protecting Omar to hand him over or face attack.
"We have told them to give us Omar, but no ultimatum has been issued," he added.
The reconnaissance team from the international security force in Kabul arrived two days after the Afghan Administration and Britain initialled an agreement on the deployment of about 4500 foreign peacekeeping troops.
The party of 20 from Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, Greece, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Romania will spend two days in Kabul surveying conditions, British forces spokesman Major Guy Richardson said.
About 200 British troops were expected to join 300 British troops already in Kabul.
The US says it is now holding 210 Taleban or al Qaeda detainees in Afghanistan and on a US naval ship in the Arabian Sea.
The majority of them, 189, were being held at a detention centre in the southern city of Kandahar, said Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Rivers Johnson.
Twelve were being held at the Bagram air base north of the Afghan capital Kabul and one in Mazar-i-Sharif in the north.
Eight non-Afghan prisoners - including US al Qaeda fighter John Walker Lindh, Australian David Hicks and a Saudi national - have been transferred from the naval amphibious assault ship USS Peleliu to the USS Bataan.
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday that the US was preparing to transfer some of the detainees to the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Meanwhile, Zacarias Moussaoui, the first person indicted in the September 11 attacks on America, appears in a US court today to enter a plea on charges of conspiring with Osama bin Laden and others to murder thousands of people.
Moussaoui, a 33-year-old French citizen of Moroccan descent, will be arraigned in a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia.
A December 11 indictment charged him with six counts of conspiracy, four of which carry a possible death penalty. Jurors in Virginia are considered to be more supportive of the death penalty than those in New York.
At the arraignment, US District Judge Leonie Brinkema may also set a date for the trial to begin.
Moussaoui, who has declared his innocence, was expected to plead not guilty. His mother arrived in the US last week to support him.
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Anti-Taleban forces march on Omar and his diehards
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