Word: omar
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...Kandahar, a dusty, ramshackle place swirling with intrigue and all manner of scheming, a great Afghan mystery envelops us all - where is Mullah Omar? To foreign eyes the Muslim cleric who carried the Taliban from this, their spiritual home, to rule the country vanished with the fall of his regime five weeks ago. There is no sign, no trace. He is invisible to our technology...
...Kandaharis need little of such things. I can't shake the feeling that to them Mullah Omar's location is less of a mystery and more of a riddle to which they may already have the answer. But it's riddle that can't be solved in Kandahar. To the west is Helmand province, an unruly place that makes the Kandaharis wary. "They're wild people," the Kandaharis' are quick to counsel. Deep in Helmand's north, guarded by great mountains, is Baghran. A formidable domain - and the sanctuary where Omar is thought to have fled...
...fact that man dubbed "the evil one" by President Bush remains at large is deeply frustrating to Washington, denying America a bit of closure over the September 11 attacks. And while Mullah Omar's capture may be of limited military and political significance, it remains an almost embarrassing failure given the priority it has been accorded. After all, the one-eyed "commander of the faithful" is no slick cosmopolitan terrorist trained in the dark arts of conspiracy. He's simply a deluded peasant mystic who, having lost the key pillars of his power - military support from Pakistan and al Qaeda...
...expressed commitment to help America snare its quarry in order to stay on the right side of the superpower that facilitated their victory, such verbal commitment has meant relatively little on the ground. Even the new prime minister, Hamid Karzai, appeared ready six weeks ago to simply let Mullah Omar fade into obscurity, before the Americans twisted his arm into promising to arrest the fugitive Taliban leader...
...rituals rather than in pitched battles. Even though they no longer control any significant territory, the Taliban's thousands of fighters may remain an asset prized by various warlords in their continuing turf battles for control over southern Afghanistan. And such calculations may be hindering the hunt for Mullah Omar...