Senior al-Qa'ida man held as Mullah Omar 'escapes'

US forces in Afghanistan took custody yesterday of one of the al-Qa'ida terrorist organisation's most senior figures, as well as the Taliban's former ambassador to Pakistan. But Mullah Omar, the one-eyed leader of the Taliban, eluded capture.

Ibn Al-Shaykh al-Libi is said to have been head of al-Qa'ida's training camps in Afghanistan and a close associate of Osama bin Laden, still being sought in the east of the country. Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the former ambassador to Pakistan who acted as the Taliban's spokesman in the early stages of the war, came into American custody yesterday after the Islamabad government refused his asylum application and deported him to Afghanistan. Both men may soon be transferred to the US base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

A number of British citizens, captured while fighting in the ranks of the Taliban and handed over to the Americans, are also expected to be sent to Guantanamo Bay. The existence of British Muslim prisoners became known after three of them asked the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to inform the newly opened British embassy in Kabul. According to diplomatic sources, there are other incarcerated Britons who have not been officially registered, because they have not notified the authorities.

The three men, in their mid-20s, were captured by fighters of the Uzbek warlord, General Abdul Rashid Dostum, following the siege of Kunduz in December. They were being held with 3,000 other inmates at Shibarghan prison, near Mazar-i-Sharif, when they were visited by Red Cross officials.

The Foreign Office has been unable to contact their families, because not enough information has been passed on.