Pentagon Fails Mullah Riddle

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is unsure whether Mullah Mohammad Omar, the elusive Taliban supreme leader, was in fact in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, where Afghan and American troops were in hot pursuit. “Whether or not Mullah Omar was ever there, we don’t know,” Rear Admiral John Stufflebeem said on Monday. “I would say some assumed a little too much, in believing that the negotiations that were ongoing were on the behalf of Mullah Omar.”The Pentagon will no longer speculate as to the whereabouts of Omar or the other US nemesis, Saudi-born Islamic militant Osama bin Laden, whose al-Qaeda network is blamed for the September 11 attacks that killed around 3,000 people, added Stufflebeem, the deputy director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. AFPEnds