Taliban founder lived next to US base

KABUL: Taliban founder Mullah Omar lived within walking distance of US bases in Afghanistan for years, according to a new book that suggests embarrassing failures of American intelligence.

US and Afghan leaders believed the one-eyed, fugitive leader fled to and eventually died in Pakistan, but a new biography says Omar was living just three miles from a major US base in Zabul province, where he died in 2013.

The Afghan government has vehemently denied the claims in “Searching for an Enemy”, by Dutch journalist Bette Dam, — but the Taliban, who are currently in talks with Washington, told media that the book’s claim that Omar remained in Afghanistan is “true”.

Dam —who spent years reporting in Afghanistan and has also written a book about former Afghan president Hamid Karzai — described the Taliban chief as a virtual hermit, refusing visits from his family and filling notebooks with jottings in an imaginary language.

She spent more than five years researching the book and interviewed Omar’s bodyguard Jabbar Omari, who claimed to have hid and protected him after the Taliban regime was overthrown.

Following the 9/11 attacks in 2001 which led to the fall of the Taliban, the US put a $10 million bounty on Omar and he went into hiding in a small compound in the regional capital Qalat, Dam wrote.

The family living at the compound were not told of the identity of their mystery guest, but US forces almost found him twice.

At one point, a US patrol approached as Omar and Omari were in the courtyard. Alarmed, the two men ducked behind a wood pile, but the soldiers passed without entering.

A second time, US troops even searched the house but did not uncover the concealed entrance to his secret room.

Omar decided to move when the US started building Forward Operating Base Lagman in 2004, just a few hundred metres from his hideout.

He later moved to a second building but soon afterwards the Pentagon constructed Forward Operating Base Wolverine —home to 1,000 US troops, and where American and British special forces were sometimes based — close by.

He dared not move again, Dam says, rarely going outside and often hiding in tunnels when US planes flew over.