20000404

Escaped Afghan

commander appears

in public

LONDON: The veteran Afghan commander, Ismail Khan, who escaped from a Taliban prison in Kandahar last week, has spoken publicly for the first time since he got free.

In a BBC interview he said was now in an area of Afghanistan under the control of forces opposed to the Taliban.

He did not give his exact location.

Khan, who was detained in 1997, said people dissatisfied with Taliban rule had helped him to escape. He added that he was still in favour of a political solution to the Afghan conflict and would do his best to promote that.

There have been conflicting reports about his whereabouts since his escape a week ago. His family had insisted that he had joined them in exile in Iran.

Taliban super leader Mullah Mohammad Omar has offered a reward for the arrest of Ismail Khan, who broke of jail with two other men.

Khan, an ally of the ex-president Burhanuddin Rabbani, was governor in the Herat region for four years until he was pushed out by the Taliban in 1995.

He was captured in 1997 in northern Afghanistan's Faryab province and taken to Kandahar where he had been held since.

The United Nations withdrew its international staff from Kandahar after the Taliban entered UN offices as part of a search for Khan.

The UN pull-out marks a new row between the Taliban and the UN after it resumed operations in Afghanistan last year after having stayed away for six months following the killing of one of its officials.ÑPPI