TALIBAN U.S. came close to 2 leaders, reports say

A Taliban planner said a U.S. pilot failed to see bin Laden walking on a trail.
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
NEW YORK -- Soldiers hunting terror kingpins Osama bin Laden and Mullah Mohammed Omar have come close to catching them several times, it was reported this week.
American and Afghan soldiers muffed their best chance a few months ago, when they brushed by Omar in Uruzgan Province but failed to recognize the one-eyed cleric, according to Newsweek.
The ousted Taliban leader and his security detachment had stopped at a local mosque for afternoon prayers when several humvees and pickup trucks carrying American and Afghan soldiers pulled up.
The Afghan soldiers entered the mosque, but Omar kept his cool, telling his men to hide their weapons. He then led the newcomers in prayer, Taliban fighter Assadullah Zarafat told the magazine.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai acknowledged in October that Omar has indeed slipped through the allies' fingers several times.
"Mullah Omar is alive and ... we have come close to arresting him several times, but he has been able to escape," Karzai told CNN.
Bin Laden
Bin Laden had his own close call not too long ago, when a U.S. warplane passed overhead as the terror bigwig walked down a mountain trail, a senior Taliban planner, identified only as Zabihullah, told Newsweek. But the pilot apparently failed to see him as bin Laden and his aides ducked into some bushes.
Lately, bin Laden has been sleeping in secret bivouacs surrounded by mines and high explosives designed to kill him and shred his body, ensuring he doesn't meet the same humiliating end as former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, Taliban operatives told Newsweek.
The magazine also said the United States has been using a complicated software program called Analyst's Notebook to map the links in bin Laden's tribal network and identify weaknesses.