December 24, 2001	Monday	Shawwal 8, 1422

KANDAHAR, Dec 23: The US Federal Bureau of Investigation is questioning ex-Taliban deputy defence minister Mullah Mohamad Fazil as it seeks Taliban head Mullah Mohammad Omar, a spokesman for the Kandahar governor said on Sunday.

An eight-man FBI team was interrogating Fazil in Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, the main stronghold of the Taliban movement until it was driven from power last month, he said.

Fazil was arrested by the forces of ethnic Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum a month ago at the time of the Taliban’s surrender in the north, spokesman Khalid Pashtun said.

He said the FBI team wanted information on the whereabouts of the Taliban’s leader Mullah Omar, as well as Osama bin Laden.

Both have eluded US efforts to capture them, and it is not known for certain if they are still alive.

US-led forces are already questioning about 7,000 prisoners in Afghanistan to determine the level of their involvement in the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, a spokesman for the US-led anti-terror coalition said on Friday.

Pashtun said Mullah Omar was hiding somewhere in the mountains around Kandahar.

He said hundreds of operatives from Afghanistan’s secret services were collecting information about the two fugitives.

The Pentagon said last week US military forces were holding 23 captured Al-Qaeda or Taliban fighters for interrogation in Afghanistan and on a navy warship in the Indian Ocean.

Among eight detainees on the USS Peleliu were American John Walker Lindh, 20, and Australian David Hicks, 26, converts to Islam who went to Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban or Al-Qaeda leader Osama.

Fifteen prisoners were being held by US marines at a special facility at Kandahar air base.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Wednesday US Marines were expanding that facility to hold as many as 500 prisoners.

US forces have also turned a derelict hangar at the Soviet-era Bagram air base, 40 kms north of Kabul, into a temporary prison for up to 120 Taliban and Al-Qaeda captives.

India arrests two: Two Afghan nationals suspected of belonging to Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network were picked up by Indian police at the Indo-Nepal border in Bihar, an official said on Sunday.

K.L. Verma, chairman of the Central Board of Excise and Customs, told the Star News television channel that thetwo, originally stopped under suspicion of smuggling, were found during interrogation to be followers of Osama.

“Our investigations revealed that the two men the police arrested on suspicion of smuggling actually belong to the Al Qaeda,” said Verma.

“We are taking a lot of extra precautions and have alerted the border checkposts to block terrorist infiltration attempts. Foreign nationals involved in dubious smuggling activities are being rounded up for questioning,” he added.

Verma said it was “very tough” to check terrorist infiltration along India’s 1,800-kilometre-long border with Nepal.

“Our Indo-Nepal border is very porous, totally open in places so it is more vulnerable to terrorist infiltration and smuggling activities,” Verma said.

On Oct 2, Mumbai police arrested Mohammad Afroz Abdul Razzak, who they say belongs to the Al Qaeda network and confessed that he was part of a suicide squad planning to crash a plane into Britain’s House of Commons.—Reuters/AFP