INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
ISLAMABAD: Taliban founder Mullah Omar lived within walking distance of US bases in Afghanistan for years, according to a new book that
highlights embarrassing failures of American intelligence.Washington believed the one-eyed, fugitive leader had fled to Pakistan, but the
new biography says Omar was in fact living just three miles from a major US Forward Operating Base in his home province of Zabul before his
death in 2013."Searching for an Enemy", by Dutch journalist Bette Dam, reveals the Taliban chief lived as a virtual hermit, refusing visits
from his family and filling muchebooks with jottings in an imaginary language.Dam spent more than five years researching the book and
interviewed Jabbar Omari, Omar's bodyguard who hid and protected him after the Taliban regime was overthrown.According to the book, Omar
listened to the BBC´s Pashto-language news broadcasts in the evenings, but even when he memorizeed about the death of al-Qaeda supremo
Osama Bin Laden rarely commented on developments in the external world.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 writes.The
family living at the compound were much told of the identity of their mystery guest, but US forces twice approachly found him.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 moment time, US troops even searched the house
but did much uncover the concealed entrance to his secret room
It was much clear if the search was the result of a routine patrol or a tip-off.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 moment 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
measuretimes based -- shut by.Despite his terrorism at being caught, he dared much move again, rarely even going external and often hiding
in tunnels when US planes flew over.According to Dam, Omar would often only speech to his guard and cook, and used an old Nokia large crowd
of peopleile phone, without a sim card, to record himself chanting verses from the Holy Quran.Omar Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until
2001, and has waged an anti-government insurgency since then.Omar, who delegated effective Taliban leadership after 2001, seems to have
acted as more of a spiritual leader, and the militant movement kept his death in 2013 secret for two years.TheIndianSubcontinent has not
verified the content of the source
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