[A-List] Our gallant forces!

["Annewilliamson" <Annewilliamson@xxxxxxx>]

Too bad Peter Lorre's still not around, he'd be perfectly cast as the
haplass Afghani on the run.....
starring in an "Army of One," a tribute to the US Army's current,
nonsensical recruitment slogan
(replacing "Be All that You Can Be").


'I'm not Mullah Omar' says the man on CIA wanted poster
The Sunday Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | 10/13/2002 | Christina Lamb



Thousands of American troops scouring Afghanistan for Mullah Omar have been
looking for the wrong man, according to an Afghan villager who claims that
it is his face on the CIA's wanted poster and not that of the fugitive
Taliban leader.

Maulvi Hafizullah, a former protocol officer for the Taliban, has been
hiding in fear for his life in a remote part of southern Afghanistan since
his photograph appeared as Omar on a CIA leaflet.

Hundreds of thousands of the leaflets were air-dropped by American forces
earlier this year. The leaflets offer a £3.3 million reward, more than a
million times the average weekly income.

Hafizullah, who had fled to his home village after the collapse of the
Taliban last December, was horrified when he saw the leaflet. "I looked at
the photo and it was me," he said. "The CIA are blind and stupid."

Besieged by villagers and even asked by his own five-year-old son if he was
really Omar, Hafizullah fled his village and went into hiding.

"I'm afraid to leave the house," he said. "If I do soldiers or villagers
will tear me to pieces so they can get the money."

While Hafizullah and the Taliban leader share bushy black beards, one
fundamental difference seems to have been neglected on the "wanted" poster:
Hafizullah has two eyes while Omar has only one, having been half-blinded in
a Soviet rocket attack in 1986.

"We don't know anything about this man," said an American government
official. "There aren't that many pictures of Mullah Omar around anyway.
What this does show is that this kind of poster drop certainly is effective
as people are chasing it up on the ground."

There is some justification for what may be a highly expensive case of
mistaken identity. The Taliban leader was so reclusive during his six-year
rule that most Afghans have no idea what he looks like.

There were no official portraits, he refused to allow himself to be filmed
or photographed, and there is even doubt over the most commonly used grainy
image from the BBC of him holding up the Prophet's Cloak in 1996.

He only twice travelled out of his adopted hometown of Kandahar and rarely
left his compound, venturing out at night on a motorbike in disguise to
listen to what people were saying about his regime.

The case of the man who is not Omar is the latest embarrassment in a
campaign which has yet to capture any senior Taliban officials.

After a year of false leads and daily sorties by American special forces,
Omar has constantly eluded capture. Earlier this year American troops
surrounded a village in which he was said to be hiding only to have him
escape on a motorcycle.

He is generally thought still to be alive, hiding out in rural villages
somewhere in the mountains north of Kandahar. Last month al-Jazeera
television ran a statement from him that it said it believed to be genuine
in which he vowed to fight on until Afghanistan has been "liberated" of
foreign forces.