WASHINGTON , 19 December 2002 — Special Forces soldiers said the US military inadvertently let one of the six most wanted Taleban leaders go this summer based on flawed intelligence, The Washington Times reported yesterday.
The soldiers told the Times that Mullah Akhter Mohammed Osmani, one of the militia’s top generals, was apprehended in late July as he left his compound west of Kandahar. He was brought to a detention center at Bagram air base for questioning but was released a few weeks later.
Two soldiers and a senior administration official told the daily that Osmani was released after a US intelligence report placed him in a different location following his detention. Officials said he then fled to Pakistan, where he remains.
US government spokesmen, however, expressed skepticism over the soldiers’ account in correspondence to the Times.
One of the spokesmen, Col. Roger King, said "we don’t discuss specifics of persons captured, neither names nor nationalities," but added: "I will tell you that Osmani is one of those we seek."
He also quoted Lt. Gen. Dan McNeill, commander of Task Force 180, the overall command in Afghanistan, as saying: "If we had captured Osmani, we would still have him."
But the soldiers, speaking on condition of anonymity, maintain their report’s accuracy. Osmani is part of a small network of former Taleban leaders attempting to assemble a guerrilla force to disrupt Afghan leader Hamid Karzai’s government, according to the daily.
In Stockholm, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said that Al-Qaeda no longer runs training camps in Afghanistan but that activity on a small scale is likely to continue for a long time. "I’m certain there are no large-scale camps of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. There definitely are individuals and small groups hiding in Afghanistan from place to place, and occasionally they come out and do certain things," Karzai told a news conference after meeting Swedish Prime Minister Goeran Persson.
"These incidents will go on for a long time," he said, calling for greater cooperation with Afghanistan’s neighbors to prevent "cross-border terrorist activities". The security situation as a whole in Afghanistan "is okay", Karzai said, and should improve further with the formation of the country’s new army.
Karzai’s remarks came after a UN report on Al-Qaeda said new foot soldiers for a war on the West are streaming into the group’s training camps that have been recently reactivated in eastern Afghanistan. While Osama Bin Laden’s financial network has been mostly dismantled, his terror network still enjoys significant support and has "access to substantial funding from its previously established investments," according to the report, compiled by an expert panel and released Tuesday.
Michael Chandler of Britain, who led the expert group, told a news conference that Al-Qaeda operatives might be present in about 40 countries, which he did not identify.
The UN experts warned in the report that Al-Qaeda has the potential to obtain nuclear material and build "some kind of dirty bomb."
More than a year after a US-led coalition ousted the Taleban from power in Afghanistan, the report said "one of the most recent developments to come to light is the apparent activation of new, albeit simple, training camps in eastern Afghanistan" for Al-Qaeda supporters.
NATO earlier announced that it will soon provide logistical support to improve coordination within the 22-nation force keeping the peace in the Afghan capital.
At the Stockholm news conference, Karzai said that the security situation in the Afghan provinces is "as good as it is in Kabul, at times it’s even better".
Karzai said he was not worried that the current Western focus on Iraq might lessen the international community’s willingness to help Afghanistan. "Indications from the United States and countries in Europe suggest that Afghanistan will not be receiving less attention," he said.
