WASHINGTON, March 30: Only nine senior Al Qaeda members have been killed and three captured during the war in Afghanistan, leaving the whereabouts of an additional 15 on the Pentagon’s list of most-wanted terrorist network leaders still unknown to US military authorities, The Washington Post said on Saturday.

Quoting government sources, the paper said among the Taliban leadership, two persons had been killed, four captured and 21 were unaccounted for.

The tallies come from lists of Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders drawn up by the US Central Command and updated as recently as Thursday. Although a number of the deaths and captured have been publicized since the war’s start more than five months ago, the Post said, the Pentagon has declined to release the complete lists, which reveal not only how many of those being sought continue to elude US forces, but also how poorly the manhunt has fared in recent months.

Since early January, when the Pentagon announced that American troops would be searching even more intently for enemy leaders after toppling the Taliban and routing Al Qaeda fighters from their mountainous Tora Bora stronghold, only two senior Al Qaeda or Taliban members have been discovered dead and only three more have been captured.

With enemy fighters scattered in small clusters, US military officials worry that finding them poses even greater challenges.

The dead include Hamza al-Qatari, identified as an Al Qaeda financial aide, and Haji Lala, a senior aide to Taliban leader Mulla Mohammad Omar. The three taken into custody most recently include Sharqawi Abdu Ali al-Hajj, described as an Al Qaeda “facilitator”; Khairula Khairkhwa, the former Taliban governor of the western province of Herat; and Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, the former Taliban foreign minister.

Of these, only Muttawakil’s situation was previously made public. He surrendered to Afghan forces in February and was promptly handed over to US forces in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.

Pentagon authorities have withheld word on the others, and on Friday a senior spokesman for Central Command declined to confirm them, citing operational and intelligence-gathering concerns. “We just don’t normally talk about who we’ve killed, nor do we release the identities of senior Al Qaeda or Taliban members in custody,” Army Col Rick Thomas told the Post.

Of the seven senior Al Qaeda or Taliban members listed as captured, all but one are in US custody, two officials said. The exception is Sharqawi Abdu Ali al-Hajj.

One official with access to the lists said that just because an enemy leader is not shown as killed does not mean that he is alive.

Nonetheless, the Post says, Pentagon officials are going on the presumption that most Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders remain alive and in hiding.