Jalalabad police chief quits under pressure

Nangarhar police chief and former Mujahideen commander, Haji Mohammed Zaman who resigned from office and returned to Pakistan after U.S. and British forces present in Jalalabad secured safe passage for him, said yesterday that Osama bin Laden was present in the strategic eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad during U.S. air strikes last November.

"When we entered Jalalabad on November 14 we found that Osama bin Laden had just left the same day," said Haji Zaman, who was closely coordinating with U.S. forces during the bombing of Jalabad and subsequent attacks on the Tora Bora cave complex.

Khan said his men chased bin Laden, but he escaped into the caves. Haji Zaman was blamed by officials from the Afghan defence and interior ministries for giving safe passage to Osama bin Laden from the Tora Bora caves complex in return for money.

Anti-Taliban forces discovered some bin Laden hideouts in Jalalabad and "this search also confirmed that bin Laden and his associates had been using them during the U.S. air strikes on Afghanistan," he said.

"Some Al Qaida men arrested from Tora Bora later confirmed during the interrogations that bin Laden had fled to the caves hours before our arrival in Jalalabad," he added. Zaman, who is chief of the Khugyani tribe in the Pashtun ethnic group, said Tora Bora, 50 kilometres from Jalalabad, is his tribe's area.

He said his supporters in the tribe had told him after he arrived in Jalalabad that they had been hired by bin Laden's men to dig trenches and supply water to the nearly inaccessible caves. "My tribesmen also confirmed that they sold mules to bin Laden's men," he said.

After passing the information to U.S. forces, the United States sent bombers and Pakistan sent troops to seal off the border, Khan said, adding that his forces also followed bin Laden to Tora Bora.

"My forces arrested 55 Al Qaida men and five Pakistanis from Tora Bora," he said. Zaman, speaking from his home in Peshawar, said he had resigned as police chief of Jalalabad because of pressure from elements in the interim government in Kabul.

There is no room for pro-Loya Jirga and pro-Zahir Shah Afghans taking active part in the restoration of peace in Afghanistan," Zaman said.

Sources said that Governor of Nangarhar, Haji Abdul Qadeer and officers of the U.S. and British forces stationed in eastern Afghanistan brokered the deal between Haji Zaman and the corp commander, Haji Hazrat Ali to give safe passage to Zaman to cross into Pakistan.

"He was brought here under tight security through the Pak-Afghan border on Saturday night and was allowed to cross into Pakistan," Pakistani border security guards said.

Haji Zaman alleged that all the pro-Loya Jirga Afghans, playing an active role in the process are faced with difficulties and risk their lives, as some powerful elements within the Afghan interim government of Hamid Karzai, were bent on eliminating them.

"I decided to resign instead of starting bloody clashes like Gardez," he said adding that it would have been a crime to kill the poor and hungry Afghans in the quest for power.

He did not name Afghan Defence Minister Gen. Fahim and his loyalists, but hinted that powerful members in the Hamid Karzai-led interim setup had targeted him because of his pro-Loya Jirga activities.