Taliban leader ‘injured in US air raid’

TALIBAN leader Mullah Mohammad Omar was wounded in a US air raid that killed four of his bodyguards earlier this month, according to reports in Pakistan.

The one-eyed fugitive was injured in the legs and body and will not be able to move about for two months, a doctor told the Ausaf newspaper.

The raid took place in the southern Afghan province of Zabul, said the newspaper report.

Omar is believed to have fled into the Afghan mountains from Kandahar as allied and Afghan forces closed in on the city in December 2001.

The Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan on strict Islamic principles, is closely allied to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terror network.

An al-Qaida intelligence chief identified only as Abdullah was killed in the Pakistan army’s assault on the terror network in the mountainous border with Afghanistan, Major General Shaukat Sultan said yesterday. He would not say how the army had learned of Abdullah’s death, or if it had possession of his body.

Abdullah is a common Islamic name, and it was impossible to know which of many al-Qaida and other terror suspects Sultan might be referring to. Villagers have begun filing back into their homes after seeking shelter during the operation, when thousands of Pakistani forces battled hundreds of foreign and local militants.

Disgruntled tribesmen demanded compensation for properties they said had been damaged and looted in Pakistan’s biggest and bloodiest operation to flush out al-Qaida fugitives, which left 60 militants and about 50 troops dead.

The military declared the operation over yesterday and said it was successful.

Some 163 suspects were arrested, but hundreds of other militants are still at large, including Uzbek terrorist leader Tahir Yuldash, who was reportedly injured in the assault.