KABUL - British special forces are leading a hunt for the Taleban leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, in southern Afghanistan.
The operation, which includes United States troops and Afghan fighters, is concentrating in the border areas of Kandahar and Zabol province, where large numbers of Taleban and al Qaeda forces are believed to be regrouping.
British forces are concentrated in the south, which is the reason they are not involved in the continuing operation further north, in Gardez.
About 50 members of the Special Air Service (SAS) and Special Boat Service (SBS) are involved in the operation, which has carried out a number of missions along the Khwaja Amran mountain range.
American commanders have restricted the operation to US, British and Afghan contingents, unlike the assault on Gardez, codenamed Operation Anaconda, which involves forces from Canada, Australia, Germany, Denmark, Norway and France.
Unlike the Gardez operation, the mission in the southeast, in the remote Pashtun heartland, is cloaked in secrecy.
According to defence sources, the operation follows intelligence reports that Omar is in the area with a number of his lieutenants. There is no suggestion that Osama bin Laden is also there.
More than half a dozen raids have been carried out so far, mainly in Kandahar province, including some in the Hada Hills, near the town of Spin Baldak, where the Taleban made a stand before retreating into Pakistan.
A number of Taleban fighters have been killed and captured and documents discovered in the operation. Allied Afghan fighters have also been killed, but there are no reports of casualties among British or US troops.
The main part of the Afghan force taking part in the operation is loyal to Gul Agha Shirzai, the American-backed Governor of Kandahar. Last month, Shirzai held talks with about a dozen senior Taleban leaders - including representatives of Omar - to discuss terms of their possible surrender.
Information gathered during the talks helped in planning some of the raids by the British and American forces.
Omar was supposedly trapped in Bagran in Helmand province in January, but managed to escape, allegedly on a motorbike. American commanders blamed Afghan allies for letting the mullah escape in return for substantial bribes. It was decided then that the hunt for him and the Taleban should be conducted by British and American forces, with the Afghans supporting.
British and American forces also held direct talks with Afghan leaders rather than depending upon intermediaries.
Meanwhile, a second Australian with possible links to al Qaeda has been identified by a newspaper as former soldier Mathew Stewart, of Mooloolaba, Queensland.
Stewart, 25, left the Australian Army suffering psychological problems after being among the first Australians to serve in East Timor in September 1999, the paper said.
The report said Stewart had not been heard from since he entered Afghanistan via Iran on August 8 last year, and that a Government source said there was strong evidence he had undergone training with al Qaeda.
It said a Foreign Affairs spokeswoman confirmed Stewart was the subject of a statement on December 19 last year, which mentioned that two Australians were believed to have had al Qaeda training.
Alleged Taleban-al Qaeda fighter David Hicks, now prisoner at a US military base in Cuba, was not one of those mentioned in the release.
It emerged yesterday that US authorities were alerted as early as 1995 that several Middle Eastern pilots were training at American flight schools and at least one had proposed hijacking a plane to crash into federal buildings, according to documents and interviews with Filipino and US authorities.
The information came from police interrogations with Abdul Hakim Murad and a computer seized from Ramzi Yousef, two men arrested after an accidental chemical fire at a Manila apartment tipped authorities to a major terrorist plot linked to al Qaeda.
Murad and Yousef eventually were convicted in the US and sentenced to life in jail for their involvement in a plot to blow up 12 US-bound airliners flying out of Asia.
Filipino police and intelligence officers, and several secret police reports reviewed by the AP news agency, say Murad's intentions were much broader and included suicide hijackings like those of September 11.
"Murad's idea is that he will board any American commercial aircraft pretending to be an ordinary passenger, then he will hijack said aircraft, control its cockpit and dive it at the CIA headquarters," one Filipino police report from 1995 said.
"There will be no bomb or any explosive that he will use in its execution. It is a suicidal mission that he is very much willing to execute," it said.
Murad, who later claimed he was tortured during his interrogations, told Filipino authorities how he and a Pakistani friend crisscrossed the US, attending flight schools in New York, Texas, California and North Carolina on his way to earning a commercial pilot's licence.
He also identified to Filipino police about 10 other Middle Eastern men who met him at the flight schools or were getting similar training.
None of the pilots match the names of the 19 hijackers from September 11, but Filipino police's investigation of Murad and Yousef uncovered information pointing to a Muslim cleric from Malaysia who has emerged in the past few months as a key figure in the investigation of last year's suicide hijackings.
Malaysian authorities believe the cleric, who goes by the name Hambali, may play a central role in linking southeast Asia groups with bin Laden.
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