Taliban official has dire warning

KATHY GANNON, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Originally published Monday, May 6, 2002

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Biding their time on the instructions of elusive leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban are regrouping in mountain hide-outs, waiting for the Afghan government to falter, a Taliban intelligence official in hiding said Sunday.

The official, Obeidullah, was an important member of the Taliban command structure as the deputy of Qari Ahmadullah, the intelligence chief targeted and killed by the U.S.-led coalition in a bombing raid in December in eastern Afghanistan. Obeidullah oversaw Kargai, the military training camp where al-Qaida and other radicals trained north of Kabul.

"We are not unhappy, afraid or finished. We are just waiting, gathering our strength," Obeidullah said.

Mullah Omar in Afghanistan

He said Omar, though high on the U.S. wanted list, is safe in Afghanistan and continues to lead the Taliban. But the man the Taliban call "the guest" -- Osama bin Laden -- "could be anywhere."

"He could be in Afghanistan, or Chechnya or Yemen," Obeidullah said.

Obeidullah said senior members of both Taliban and al-Qaida move relatively freely in Afghanistan despite the 6-month-old war against terrorism.

Omar himself has recently been to Shah-e-Kot, scene of the largest U.S. ground assault in the war. The Taliban leader has spent 20 days in the stark, arid region of eastern Afghanistan since the assault in March, Obeidullah said.

The meeting with Obeidullah in Peshawar underscored that senior fugitives of the U.S.-led war are able to find safety in neighboring Pakistan, one of Washington's chief allies in the campaign. In recent weeks U.S. Special Forces have joined Pakistani troops in search patrols along the border.

From his hide-out in Peshawar, a city of 1.5 million 30 miles west of the Afghan border, Obeidullah said the Taliban in Afghanistan were waiting -- and confident.

"There aren't just 100 or 200 of us -- there are thousands ... (and) we know how to fight a guerrilla war," Obeidullah said.

"We will give this government time to show the people how they aren't able to govern, then we will show our face more and more."

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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