The former Taliban governor of Kabul escaped arrest for the second time in a week after a firefight in southern Afghanistan, an Afghan government official said yesterday.
Mohammed Anwar, deputy inspector general of police in Kandahar, told Reuters Mullah Abdul Mannan and Tayyab Agha, an adviser to Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, had escaped after an hour-long gun battle late on Thursday.
The two men had been holed up in the Takhta Pul area, halfway between the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar and the Pakistan border, when their house was raided on Thursday night, only for Mannan and his companions to open fire, Anwar said.
It was the second time Mannan has escaped arrest from the same area in a week, Anwar said by telephone. He did not elaborate. In February, Mannan also escaped from a raid by U.S. marines and their Afghan allies.
The United States launched air attacks on Afghanistan last October in a bid to root out Osama bin Laden, chief suspect in the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, and punish his Taliban protectors.
The hardline Islamic movement swiftly crumbled under the air onslaught and lightening advances by Afghan opposition forces but bin Laden, Taliban leader Mullah Omar and most other top Taliban commanders have not been found.
Anwar said in two other raids in the area police arrested 13 people and recovered three rocket launchers, 10 rockets, anti-tank mines and a large quantity of other weapons and ammunition.
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