Relative of Omar Is Captured

The 8-month-old hunt for Mullah Mohammed Omar hit close to home Tuesday with the reported capture of a brother-in-law of the fugitive Taliban leader.

Others with the captured man fled into the Afghan mountains, the local governor said, but it was not known whether Omar was believed to be among them.

The man, named Noorullah, brother of one of Omar’s three wives, was arrested Sunday in the central province of Oruzgan, provincial Gov. Jan Mohammed Khan said.

Noorullah had been “trying to carry out sabotage,” the governor said. He did not elaborate.

“Our people and the Americans went into the mountains to search for his friends who fled,” the governor said.

He refused to say where the arrest took place or where the hunt was continuing.

“I don’t want to talk about that because our men are up there in the mountains right now,” he said.

Small teams of U.S. special operations troops and allied Afghan forces have been searching for Omar for months in Oruzgan, his home province, among high peaks and near-impassable roads.

Omar, the spiritual leader of the Taliban’s 1996-2001 regime, has been sought since fleeing Kandahar in December.