WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Afghanistan's interim leader Hamid Karzai said on Friday he believes Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar is still on the loose, and he would turn Omar over to the United States if he is captured.
Karzai comments follow several reports that Omar had been captured.
Afghanistan's Minister for Reconstruction said on Germany's ARD television on Thursday he believed Omar had been captured, and Australia's ABC television said on Friday it had heard the same from a senior official of the Northern Alliance, the main opposition to the Taliban.
But a U.S. military spokesman said he had no knowledge of it. ``We don't have anything on that,'' Marines Major Ralph Mills, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command in Florida, told Reuters.
Afghan fighters, backed by U.S. forces, have taken up positions around a village where the Taliban supreme leader is believed to have taken refuge, said an official in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.
Karzai said he spoke on Thursday night with the local military commander in the Afghan province where Omar is believed to be hiding.
``We are looking for him, Mullah Omar, and the surrender of the Taliban is continuing,'' he said.
Karzai said he would not set a specific date for the United States to end its bombing campaign in Afghanistan. ``The deadline is when the terrorists (are) finished,'' he said.