November 29, 2001	Thursday	Ramazan 13, 1422

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ISLAMABAD, Nov 28: Former Taliban ambassador Mulla Abdus Salam Zaeef has refuted reports that the Taliban supreme leader Mulla Mohammed Omar was killed in the US attack on Kandahar on Wednesday.

“Mulla Omar is safe and I have talked to him on phone,” he told reporters at an Iftar dinner hosted by the PML chairman, Raja Zafarul Haq.

Mulla Zaeef said that he knew nothing about Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts.

On the Bonn conference, he said, it would only give rise to civil strife in the war-torn country as neither the Pakhtoons nor the Taliban were represented.

He said that the people would not accept whatever transpires at the Bonn conference.

Mulla Zaeef said that no stable administrative setup would succeed in Kabul without the participation of the Pakhtoons who are 60 per cent of the total population of Afghanistan.

On the military operation, he said, by the grace of God the Taliban forces would emerge victorious and the US troops would suffer a humiliating defeat.

The government of Pakistan closed down the Taliban embassy earlier this month, but Mulla Zaeef and others were allowed to stay in the capital.