WASHINGTON, Dec 7: With the reported Taliban surrender of Kandahar, the whereabouts and fate of Mulla Mohammad Omar, who was said to have been in the besieged city, was the subject of widespread speculation here all morning on Friday.

Washington was concerned at reports on Thursday that Mulla Omar might have struck a deal with his Pakhtoon opponents on safe passage, but on Friday it was said he was no longer in Kandahar.

The new interim leader of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, was reported to have said Mulla Omar was unrepentant and should face trial. Mr Karzai was earlier described as having been in favour of coming to some kind of an arrangement with the Taliban leadership as part of the conditions leading to the surrender of Kandahar.

This had immediately hackles here, with administration officials bristling at any prospect of Mulla Omar escaping without punishment. However, at his daily press briefing on Thursday, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld appeared to leave some “wiggle room” on the issue.

While stressing that the US would not accept any arrangement that granted amnesty for Mulla Omar, Mr Rumsfeld indicated that the actual custody of the Taliban supreme leader or of Osama bin Laden might not be necessary if they could be in control of “people who will handle the conclusion in a way similar to what we could do”.

Some reporters interpreted this as marking a shift in the US position. The Washington Post recalled Mr Rumsfeld as saying last week the US had told opposition commanders that it wanted any captured leaders turned over for interrogation by American personnel and possible trial by a US military tribunal.

But with the prospect of Kandahar’s fall, “the US’s strategy appears to have changed”. The paper quoted Mr Rumsfeld as saying: “To the extent that it made sense to have that individual end up going to another country - his country of origin, say, for the sake of argument - that might make sense. I think it’s a mistake to think that there’s only one way that these things might be handled.”

A senior defence official, clarifying Mr Rumsfeld’s remarks, said the defence secretary had only meant to underscore the point that the US could not control or completely dictate what happened in Afghanistan, and experts suggest that having backed the Bonn agreement, the US had to accept some say in such matters by Mr Karzai’s interim administration.

At his briefing, Mr Rumsfeld himself stressed that people were generally dealing with hypothetical situations, as the following exchange shows:

Q: Since just yesterday Hamid Karzai was named interim prime minister for Afghanistan, if he in fact decides to strike a deal, wouldn’t it be difficult for the US to oppose that deal with whomever he strikes it and under what conditions, because after all, he’s now recognized as the interim leader of Afghanistan?