200 Taliban fighters surrounded

[2pac Shakur]

Khan told The Associated Press that Mullah Dadullah, a close aide to Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar, and other regional Taliban commanders were at the meeting when the village was surrounded. The security forces were still positioned around the village on Monday, he said.

"We are trying to get him to surrender and to arrest these Taliban without fighting," he said.

Abdul Hadi Khalid, the deputy interior minister for security, told a security commission in parliament on Monday that it was "possible that Mullah Dadullah is among" those who were attending the meeting. He said Afghan officials had demanded that the Taliban surrender or face military action. He did not mention any deadline for negotiations.

A Taliban spokesman in the south could not immediately be reached for comment. Khan said the Taliban fighters had gone into hiding in villagers' homes.

After a winter lull in violence, Afghan, NATO and U.S.-led forces have stepped up operations in recent weeks, hoping to pre-empt a feared spring offensive by militants that threatened the already shaky grip of President Hamid Karzai's government.

Killing or capturing Dadullah would be a major victory for the Afghan government and its foreign backers. A NATO airstrike killed senior Taliban commander Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani in southern Helmand province in December.

Omar's whereabouts have remained a mystery ever since the U.S.-led invasion drove the Taliban from power in 2001.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070423/...fghan_violence

Mullah Omar and Bin Laden - still free.
That's sweet that we punish all these people over 9/11, except the people we say actually did it.