MOSCOW: Taliban spiritual leader Mullah Mohammad
Omar has fled Afghanistan for Pakistan, RIA Novosti quoted a senior Northern
Alliance official as saying Tuesday in neighbouring Tajikistan.
Mukhitdin Mekhti, a senior representative of the Northern Alliance's
government in exile in Dushanbe, added that Northern Alliance forces took
control Tuesday of the main Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, the Russian state
news agency reported.
In Tehran, a Taliban official told the state IRNA news agency Tuesday that
Mullah Omar and Osama Bin Laden were "safe and sound".
However, the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) reported from Islamabad that Mullah
Mohammad Omar on Tuesday ordered his troops to stand and fight after
opposition forces marched into Kabul,
"I order you to obey your commanders completely. Do not move here and
there ... Regroup yourselves. Put up resistance and fight," the Taliban's
spiritual leader said in a radio address from his base in Kandahar about
4:30pm (1200 GMT).
AIP said Omar assured his followers in the address on Taliban wireless
frequencies that he was still in his southern stronghold despite reports he
had fled.
"Do not listen to the propaganda by opposition media. I am in Kandahar
and have not gone anywhere. This is a fight for Islam," he said.
Taliban forces evacuated the capital of Kabul overnight, leaving it open to
advancing opposition troops who arrived early Tuesday morning.
"Those who leave their positions are like chickens with their heads cut
off which will eventually die and fall in a ditch," Omar said.
( AFP )